ON THE COVER

Image from the Compendium alchymist by Johann Michael Faust, 1706 (US public domain via wikimedia).

!e cover image was created by alchemist Johann Michael Faust with this expanding text: "Compendium alcyhmisti- cum novum, immersive Pandora explicata et "guris illus- trata; which the noblest gift of God or a Güldener treasure with which the old and new Philosophi that imperfect metal, by force of "re." Carl Jung notes that “!e alche- mists professed to a transformation between "re and water, which they regarded as baptism” (CW 14, Para. 702). Faust has placed “Fermantatio,” “the force of "re” and “noblest gift of God” between the lunar and solar images.

Faust, Johan Michael. Compendium alchymist. 1706. Ojeda, Cesar. Alquimia Miscelanea. 31 Jan. 2013, www.odisea2008. com/2013/01/alquimia-miscelanea.html. Jung, C.G, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 14. 2nd ed., Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1970. Para. 702.

!e Mythological Studies Journal has been designed to be read in the printed version. Blank pages are intentional.

2 VOLUME VIII

3 MANAGING EDITORS Hannah Elizabeth Irish Randall Victoria Ulyate

EDITORIAL TEAM Hannah Elizabeth Irish Randall Victoria Ulyate Kiese Hill Jason D. Batt

LAYOUT & DESIGN Jason D. Batt

FACULTY ADVISOR Patrick Maha#ey, PhD

PROGRAM CHAIR Evans Lansing-Smith, PhD

Mythological Studies Journal is a publication of the Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology MA/PhD program of Paci"ca Graduate Institute

Copyright © Paci"ca Graduate Institute, 2020 All Rights Reserved

249 Lambert Road Carpinteria, CA 93013

paci"ca.edu

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter from the Editor 8

Strange Water 9 An Exile into the Deep Self in Frank Herbert’s Dune Jason D. Batt, MFA

!e End of Times 15 Seeing the Book of Revelation !rough a Mythic Lens Caitlinn R. Curry, MA

Encountering the Goddess 19 Transformation in the Hero’s Underworld Journey Hannah Elizabeth Irish, MA

Antipodal Worlds 25 Being Human in the Forests of the Amazon is Not the Same as Being Human in the City of Madrid Jennifer Maile Kaku

Mnemosyne’s Well 33 !e Ritual of Bathing in Beloved and !e Odyssey Kristinha Maria Reva

!e Signi"cance of the Horse in Black Elk’s Vision 39 Heather A. Taylor, MA

Birth of the Mother 47 A Dionysian Descent into Labor and Madness Randall Victoria Ulyate, MA

5 6 INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII. !is year’s theme is “Sacred Encounters: Transforma- tional Moments in Myths, Rites, and Rituals”. Little did we know, when we selected this theme a little over a year ago, that the compilation of this volume would be taking place during a time of intense transformation in many as- pects of our lives in the spring and summer of 2020. It has truly been a labor of love under pressure, reminiscent of the alchemical process. We are proud of the articles included, and excited to share them with you.

We would like to express our thanks to all of the contrib- uting authors for sharing their work with us. !eir articles cover topics such as Jungian psychology in contemporary literature, archetypal processes and modern medicine, the Hero’s Journey in classic literature, and the transformation of symbols within religious myths. !e result is a diverse exploration of this year’s theme.

Much gratitude is also owed to our faculty advisor, Dr. Pat- rick Maha#ey, for his guidance and support. Additionally, we are grateful to our peer reviewers for their time and in- put in the preliminary review process. And extra special appreciation is due to the additional members of this year’s editorial team: Kiese M. Hill and Jason D. Batt. !is pub- lication would not have been possible without their team- work, patience, and dedication.

We hope you enjoy joining us on this transformational journey!

Hannah Elizabeth Irish and Randall Victoria Ulyate Co-Managing Editors

7 8 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

Strange Water: An Exile into the Deep Self Jason D. Batt, MFA in Frank Herbert’s Dune

KEYWORDS RANK HERBERT’S NOVEL DUNE is the story of Paul Atreides’ Jungian Depth Psychology journey across the face of the desert wasteland of the planet Arrakis, also Science Fiction known as Dune, and below into the myriad hidden caverns of desert Anima dwelling Fremen. !e planet Arrakis has captured the attention of the galaxy. Archetypes F !rough political con$ict driven to possess control of Arrakis’s chief resource, the cinnamon-$avored, prescient-gifting spice, stewardship of the planet has shifted from the tyrant House Harkonnen to the noble House Atreides led by Duke Leto Atreides. For our purposes, though, the Duke is not of interest. It is his son, Paul. Paul’s exile after the death of his father and the return of the vile Harkonnen is a story of Paul’s discovery of both his destiny and his true self. For this paper, the self is de"ned as “the centre and totality of the psyche . . . rep-

resent[ing] psychic wholeness” (Wang waters. Paul’s poverty and loss guide 153). Paul "nds himself in $ight with him to the dark waters, not just the his mother into a desert where every literal waters hidden deep in the des- drop of water is sacred—so much that ert planet, but the deep waters of his even tears in mourning are seen as a own self and of the collective uncon- great sacri"ce. Yet, Paul will discover scious, “the repository of man’s psy- that there are vast amounts of water on chic heritage and possibilities” (Sam- Arrakis, hidden far below the surface. uels 32). !e discovery of those waters Founder of Jungian Depth Psycholo- and Paul’s imbibing of them form his gy, Carl Jung guides us into seeing the transformational moment, elevating psychological signi"cance of the hid- him into something nearly divine. den waters: “[W]ater is no "gure of When we enter the story, “Arrakis speech, but a living symbol of the dark lay at the hub of the universe with psyche” ( Jung, Archetypes 17). Expand- the wheel poised to spin” (565). !e ing on this, Paul’s loss of his father fall of House Atreides sets that wheel preceding his discovery of the water is spinning with Paul at the center. !e a moment that has great signi"cance sand-strewn planet Arrakis, as Her- in Jung’s psychology: “[T]he soul in bert paints it, serves as a map of the search of its lost father [must "nd its self, and what was described of Paul way] to the water, to the dark mirror equally applies to Arrakis: “an island that reposes at its bottom. Whoever of Selfdom” (Herbert 41). Paul’s inner has elected for the sake of spiritual journey follows Jung’s three psychic poverty . . . [so goes] the way of the levels, “(1) consciousness, (2) the per- soul that leads to water” ( Jung, Arche- sonal unconscious, and (3) the collec- types 17). !e outer world of Arrakis, tive unconscious” ( Jung, Essential 67), populated with a myriad cast, serves as and is mirrored in his outward journey, a mirror to the inner world that Paul illustrating Murray Stein’s observa- plunges into all the way to the deep tion, “As above, so below . . . As within,

9 Batt, “Strange Waters: An Exile into the Deep Self in Frank Herbert’s Dune” so without” (221). development” (Wang 197)—a journey of discovery of the Beginning on the "rst of Jung’s psychic levels, the sur- knowledge of their true self. face of Dune re$ects the conscious mind. !e ego serves For Jung, the discoveries within individuation require as the center of consciousness—that part of the mind that an understanding of archetypes. “[T]he archetypes of the is aware of itself (Samuels 135). We "nd that the axis of collective unconscious provided the basic themes of human those two, ego-consciousness, “is the earth, terra "rma; it is life on which each individual worked out his or her own where we live, at least during our waking hours” (Stein 36). sets of variations. !e archetype is thus Jung’s basic con- Upon the surface, the city of Arrakeen is a struggling me- cept” and serves as the collective inherited modes of psy- tropolis dependent upon technology to survive; its people chic function given energy through the coalescence of im- hide behind generated electronic shields in fear of attack by ages, emotions, ideas, and myth (Wang 75). !e world of giant, territorial sandworms. Unknown to the city-dwell- Dune is populated with archetypes, and the story is moved ers, those outside have carved out through relationships with those massive dwellings, called sietchs, archetypes. Jung states that we below. !ere, in the hidden un- encounter archetypes within our derworld network of sietchs, the personal unconscious that often Fremen thrive. !ey move in the arrive as part of the collective un- darkness of night, stepping out of conscious, those that have been human rhythm to disappear into with us before the unconscious the unorchestrated cacophony existed: “!e archetypes most of nature. !eir caverns contain clearly characterized from the their wealth—great pools of wa- empirical point of view are those ter, more water than the surface which have the most frequent and world dare imagine. the most disturbing in$uence on !e planet and its populace the ego” (Essential 91). Paul seeks serve as a symbol of the whole to understand them and integrate self: ego above (visible and thin) them into his fragmented self. and the unconscious below dis- Of Dune’s archetypes, the covered through Paul’s journey planet Arrakis is a presence (both within the planet and with- and force impossible to ignore. in himself ). In the moment of Dune’s barrenness and its severe his father’s death, all who serve judgment of separation between the House Atreides are either life and death requires it to al- killed, turn traitor, or are scat- ways be considered in every de- tered across the planet. In the "rst cision. Arrakis is the archetypal pages, we are introduced to Paul’s desert—a landscape wrapped in teachers one after another; they solitude. Mythologist Dennis each represent an aspect of who Illustration: Cover of the first edition of Dune showing Paul and Jes- Slattery draws out the archetypal he was and how his psyche was sica traversing the desert. Illustrated by John Schoenherr, 1965. Pub- nature of the desert: “!e desert constructed. As Jung states, “the lished by Chilton. has its mimetic reality in psyche images of the unconscious place as psyche has a natural impulse a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand to express those qualities of the desert. Its power of place them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him is archetypal in energy and condition and pulls us radi- of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness” cally out of the ordinary” (47). In the desert, Paul’s prior (Memories 193). In the fall of House Atreides, Paul, along life, what he had considered ordinary, disappears and he is with his mother, the Lady Jessica, $ee to the desert, and confronted with unique situations and individuals one after the host of characters that populated his life are dispersed. another. !ese desert encounters pull him further into his Externally, the aspects of Paul’s psyche are fragmented, re- unconscious towards his moment of transformation. $ecting the internal fragmenting that drives Paul along his Paul treks across the desert and then descends below path of integration and individuation. Integration is an in- the surface “into the dark, hot depths of the unconscious” ternal act, that, with psychological maturity, allows “all out- ( Jacobi 186). In descent, Jessica reminds them that nav- ward ceremonies [to] conform to an inborn psychological igating the waters ahead, "guratively, is the key to their pattern of change and growth” (Samuels 84). Individuation survival: “Survival is the ability to swim in strange water . . . is Jung’s term for “a person’s potential for full psychological Paul and I [ Jessica], we must "nd the currents and patterns

10 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

in these strange waters . . . if we’re to survive” (Herbert also, with the proper manipulation, become the Water of 394). What Jessica does not understand is that her words Life, created at the moment of the murder of a $edgling foreshadow the literal navigation of water that will ensure sandworm by drowning it. It is the little sandworms’s "nal their survival, both physically and within the unconscious. “liquid exhalation” (454). !ese little makers are also the !e planet, at "rst examination, is nearly without water, hoarders and occupiers of the very water that will kill them so much so that the inhabitants wear still-suits—full-body when they later grow into great worms. In their part-veg- out"ts designed to capture every drop of perspired and etative state, they form the pre-spice mass which re$ects excreted water and "lter it into drinkable water. As men- the “prima materia, the ‘raw material’ of the psyche, which tioned before, on Arrakis, even tears are precious. !ose must "rst succumb to death before it can awaken, recast, to who have commerced long on the planet, trading spice new and perhaps more di#erentiated, more nearly perfect, and water, conclude one thing: “!ere isn’t enough water” and more enduring life” ( Jacobi 158-159). Herbert assigns (177). !is belief is in error. While on the surface, across the makers this very capability: anything can arise from the visible world, there is not enough water, there is water the pre-spice mixture and the poison of the Water of Life secreted away. !e surface is not where the Fremen live nor that is formed when the maker is drowned. !e prima ma- where their treasures are held. Below the ground, concealed teria succumbs to death and, from it, the Water of Life is far and wide, are hidden pools, each with “more than thir- created. ty-eight million decaliters” of water, “hidden and preserved” Jessica is not the only one to drink and transform the (405). Of these, they “have thousands of such caches. Only Water of Life. Paul does as well and it is in his drinking of a few of [the Fremen] know them all.” !e great reserve of the Water of Life that he experiences his transformational hidden water on a desert planet is the result of generations moment. While Jessica transforms the Water of Life by of e#ort. Again, Jung’s understanding of water is important the gallon, Paul manages to convert only a single drop, and to understand Herbert’s meaning: “[W]ater is no "gure of that act alone puts him into a dreamless coma for three speech, but a living symbol of the dark psyche” ( Jung, Ar- weeks. He has found the deep waters within the deep self. chetypes 17). Below the surface, Paul "nds water, enough to Like a Reverend Mother, he transforms the waters of the drown a great worm and enough to transform a planet into sandworms into a digestible substance. Inside himself, he, a verdant paradise. Within the dark psyche is the water to in a much smaller degree than the natural skill of the Rev- bring life to the barrenness of the conscious surface. erend Mothers, moves molecules around until the concoc- From the hidden water comes the mysterious Water tion is ready. He takes the intoxicating, deadly substance of of Life. In her ascension to become the Fremen Reverend the unconscious and, through his skill, transforms it into Mother, the pinnacle position of female religious leader- something others can partake of, although the amount for ship, Jessica is brought “the Water of Life, the water that him is so small, none is passed on. Jung speaks of the art- is greater than water—Kan, the water that frees the soul . ist’s manipulation of the unconscious material for the wid- . . It opens the universe to you” (Herbert 447). !e Water er audience: of Life is the deep self. For the Fremen, its consumption brings a prescient insight of the internal self that paves the [T]he artist reaches back to the primordial image in way for the attainment of individuation, as the heavy dose the unconscious which is best "tted to compensate of spice travels within to interact with the ancestral mem- the inadequacy and one-sidedness of the present . ories. In imbibing the potent substance, the soul is freed . . and in raising it from deepest unconsciousness, and the universe inside is opened. It is a feminine creation, [transforms] it until it can be accepted by the minds a “poison of illusion and seduction” ( Jung, Essential 112), of his contemporaries according to their powers. because it is believed to only be made drinkable by the tribe (Collected Works 15, par. 130) by "rst being transformed bodily within a Reverend Moth- !is act of molding the unconscious material is given phys- er. In doing so, Jessica ascends. ical form in the transformation of the Water of Life into Where does the Water of Life come from? As in all something digestible for the tribe. Paul molds the Water of things in Dune, everything returns to the sandworms. !e Life into that which is palatable for others, knowing that in great makers, as the worms are known to the Fremen, are its raw form, it would kill the receiving Fremen. the force of change upon the surface and below. Every- Paul’s capabilities are tested at the beginning of Dune where their in$uence is felt. Everywhere their presence by the Reverend Mother Caius Helen Mohiam. Finishing intrudes. !e little makers—“leathery half-plant, half-ani- this testing, she explains the Water of Life as a path to- mal makers” (Herbert 348)—are the formers of the mate- wards the inner anima and animus, the feminine and mas- rial that will later become the coveted resource spice. In its culine aspects of the unconscious theorized by Jung: initial phase, this material is called the pre-spice mass—in We look down so many avenues of the past. . . . But this early form it can become more than just spice. It can only feminine avenues. . . . Yet, there’s a place where no

11 Batt, “Strange Waters: An Exile into the Deep Self in Frank Herbert’s Dune”

Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is age of the great Shai-Hulud (as the Fremen also reverently said a man will come one day and "nd in the gift of the refer to the worms) burrowing through the sand, danger- drug his inward eye. He will look where we cannot—into ous and hungry to be tamed, is an echo of the exploration both feminine and masculine pasts. . . . !e one who can be of the divine archetype, the imago-dei, the image of God, many places at once. (Herbert 15-16) in the deep self. Re$ecting on the various descriptions of In following the anima, engaging with it, accepting, and the worms in Dune, in their appearance, actions, and pres- integrating it, Paul experiences his transformational mo- ence, the "ctional desert monster conjures images of a host ment and discovers the hidden place foretold by the Rever- of mighty creatures swimming below the surface: Jonah’s end Mother Mohiam—a place that exists not merely in his big "sh, Ahab’s whale, the biblical leviathan, and the world unconscious but also in the collective unconscious: “Paul’s serpents Jörmungandr and the ouroboros. In the singular consciousness $owed through and around her and into the image of the sand worm, these fragmented images of the darkness. She glimpsed the place dimly before her mind unknown divine are merged. !e threat of its appearance is blanked itself away from the terror” (560). As Paul explores, always present, although its form is often occluded. When he discovers that these hidden, avoided places inside are it does emerge, the moment follows the beats of a numi- di#erent for male and female. Paul’s description of this nous revelation. !e sandworm is the holy divine in the hidden place re$ects a basic understanding of the contra- unconscious, holding the tension of “the opposites within sexual archetypes of anima and animus: the God-image itself ” ( Jung, Memories 338). !e worm’s rational aspects are subjugated below its numinous nature: !ere is in each of us an ancient force that takes and it is both tremendous (inspiring awe) and mysterious (of an ancient force that gives. A man "nds little di%- a nature and origin and destination unknown). It does culty facing that place within himself where the tak- not seek to relate. It does not even seek to acknowledge. ing force dwells, but it’s almost impossible for him It simply aims to “cleanse the world” with its passage. !e to see into the giving force without changing into worm’s own passage across Dune conjures Genesis: “And something other than man. For a woman, the situa- the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (King tion is reversed. . . . !ese things are so ancient within James Version, 1.2). Jung concludes that God’s declaration us. (561) to Job is summarized with this characterization: “!is is I, Paul discovers and enters this place—for him, it is a truly the creator of all the ungovernable, ruthless forces of Na- feminine place that echoes Jung’s anima. He "nds himself ture, which are not subject to any ethical laws. I, too, am an inhabiting the darkness within himself so that he is able to amoral force of Nature, a purely phenomenal personality be in many places at once—many internal spaces across all that cannot see its own back” (Essential 320). !e worm is of humanity. this form of the divine, “an amoral force of Nature.” It is Paul’s transformational moment of taking the Water of born from the prima materia, the “primordial unconscious- Life is a descent into the belly of the worm, in a manner. ness [that] likes to haunt ‘caverns and tenebrous places’” Jung clari"es this moment: “!e overcoming from with- ( Jacobi 146). in is the achievement of adaptation to the conditions of Frank Herbert uses similar language about the worm the inner world, and the emergency (‘slipping out’) of the as he does about the race consciousness that Paul explores hero from the monster’s belly . . . [s]ymbolizes the recom- deep inside himself: “But he could feel the demanding race mencement of progression” (Essential 64). His drinking of consciousness within him, his own terrible purpose, and the Water of Life and his subsequent three-week coma is he knew that no small thing could de$ect the juggernaut” his descent into the monster. (Herbert 402). Paul does not merely integrate his con- !is moment of the Water of Life is sacred because sciousness with his unconscious, but he moves towards the sandworms are perceived as divine, as evidenced in the integrating with the collective unconscious. Author Brian Fremen planetologist Liet Kynes murmuring prayer: “Bless Herbert, son of Frank Herbert, in the afterword to Dune, the Maker and His water . . . Bless the coming and going acknowledges Jung’s contribution to Dune: of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep [T]he women of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood have the world for His people” (Herbert 157). Quoting Jung, a collective memory—a concept based largely upon Jungian scholar Edward Edinger says, “To this day God is the writings and teachings of Carl Gustav Jung, who the name by which I designate all things which cross my spoke of a “collective unconscious,” that supposedly willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset inborn set of “contents and modes of behavior” pos- my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the sessed by all human beings. (684-685) course of my life for better or worse” ( Jung qtd in: Edinger 101). On the planet Arrakis, the great Maker crosses Paul’s !e race consciousness of Dune is essentially Jung’s col- “path violently and recklessly,” upsetting his plans. !e im- lective unconscious. Frank Herbert, despite naming it

12 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

something di#erent, harkens upon the perfect description: the Houses and the separation within himself. He is com- “!ere is in all things a pattern that is part of our uni- plete. verse. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace. . . . We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort” (480). !e ar- chetypes of the collective unconscious emerge within these patterns of our universe—the rhythms and the dances. !e archetypes are in all of our thoughts, all of our glimpses, in the brush stroke of the painter, and the complicated melo- dy of the composer. Archetypes are the towering "gures of myth, and they are the watchful visages deep in each of us. One of those "gures of myth in Dune is the worm, mov- ing leviathan-like below the sands. Paul’s waking awareness of the collective unconscious moving through his deep self symbolically echoes these movements of the great worm. Herbert encourages us to consider that what is perceived as the great maker’s path across Dune is mirrored in each of us as an image of the manifestation of the collective un- conscious. Paraphrasing Kyne’s blessing here expands our understanding of this Jungian concept into something akin to a personal mantra: “Bless the collective unconscious and its transformative ability. Bless its coming and going in our life. May the collective unconscious cleanse the world. May it keep the world for those awakened to it.” When Paul returns to the surface to bridge his identi- ties of the prophesied Kwisatz Hiderach, a Fremen messiah "gure whose title is “interpreted as ‘!e shortening of the Works Cited way’ or ‘!e one who can be two places simultaneously’” (Herbert 638), Paul moves between the two, abandoning !e Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, the mantle of House Atreides above to discover the role 1998. of the prophesied Fremen messiah Muad’Dib below and Edinger, Edward. Ego and Archetype. Shambala Publica- then returning to bring the two into unity as Duke Paul tions. 1972. Muad’Dib. Paul navigates the inner world, mirroring the Herbert, Frank. Dune. Ace Books, 20W05. steps in his external desert world with the internal steps Jacobi, Jolande Székács. Complex: Archetype: Symbol in the toward becoming the Kwisatz Hiderach—a messianic con- Psychology of C.G. Jung. Translated by Ralph Manheim, sciousness for a future interstellar empire. His whole person Princeton University Press, 1959. has been assimilated in the "nal moments, and, in keep- Jung, C. G., and Aniela Ja#é. Memories, Dreams, Re#ec- ing pace, so has the external world. !e House Atreides is tions. Vintage Books, 1989. brought into alignment with the Fremen Muad’Dib, and ---. !e Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Routledge, they both ascend to the Emperorship over the known hu- 2014. man empire spanning multiple worlds. ---. !e Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 15. Princeton As Dune concludes, we are left wondering if Paul has University Press, 2014. gone too far from a Jungian perspective, as Edinger’s warn- ---. !e Essential Jung, edited by Anthony Storr, Princeton ing rings loud at this moment: “[T]he ego totally identi"ed University Press, 1983. with the Self experiences itself as a deity” (7). However, Samuels, Andrew. Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis. this is the work for later books by Frank Herbert. For the Routledge, 2015. transformation Paul has navigated, a Fremen mantra ap- Slattery, Dennis Patrick, and Lionel Corbett. Depth Psy- plies: “Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife—chopping chology: Meditations in the Field. Daimon, 2004. o# what’s incomplete and saying: ‘Now, it’s complete be- Walker, Barbara G. !e Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and cause it’s ended here’” (Herbert 219). In the "nal moments Secrets. Harper San Francisco, 1994. of Dune, standing on the surface of Arrakis, as Duke Paul Wang, Chu-Kia, and Charles G. Salmon. !e Handbook Muad’Dib, Paul has completed his journey, ful"lled the of Jungian Psychology: !eory, Practice and Applications. long waiting of the Fremen and bridged the separation of Routledge, 2006.

13 Sacred Encounters: Transformational Moments in Myths, Rites, and Rituals

14 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

The End of Times: Seeing the Book of Revelation Caitlinn R. Curry, MA through a Mythic Lens

KEYWORDS HE BOOK OF REVELATION, the last book in the biblical canon, Book of Revelation is a text pregnant with odd beasts, terrifying prophecies, deadly battles, D. H. Lawrence and intense, almost horri"c, images. Readers of the book "nd them- Joseph Campbell selves transported into a surreal landscape where the moon turns to blood, good Christian Mythology T defeats evil, and Heaven is tangible. In many reformed sects of the Protestant Church, the meaning of the Book of Revelation has become "xed: read through the lens of literalism, many pastors, theologians, and congregations assert there are limited ways to understand what this story conveys. Unfortunately, a mod- ernist belief in a single interpretation as “right” tends to be exclusionary and condemning, and leaves many feeling alienated from a text, and the text’s God, in which they had hoped to "nd meaning. Is it possible to see an inclusive

and magical irrationality in this Bib- will be a seven-year period of Tribula- lical text? Is it possible for the text to tion (global famine, su#ering, disease, be read in a mythic, rather than theo- war, in short, pain that a#ects all of logical, way? By consulting the voices Creation), a thousand years of peace, of D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Campbell, and a Rapture in which the true be- and C. G. Jung, this paper seeks to as- lievers (living and dead) are taken up sert that there are, indeed, a variety of to Heaven. !e order of these events pathways through which to read the is still widely contested within Protes- Book of Revelation. tant communities. Before exploring the ideas of Camp- For many Christians, Revelation bell, Lawrence, and Jung, it is helpful and “the last things are integral to the to clarify the way in which some Prot- biblical message,” as it prophetical- estant Christians interpret the Book ly “announces the climactic triumph of Revelation. To begin, according to of the kingdom of God over hostile Stephen Spencer, Revelation is con- earthly kingdoms” (Spencer 438). sidered to be “the doctrine of the last Spencer continues on to claim that things [which] concerns the culmina- “salvation is inseparable from the cul- tion of God’s purposes, focused on the mination of God’s work. Victory over last One, Jesus Christ, ‘the last Adam’ enemies, healing from disease, cleans- (1 Cor. 15.45), whose (second) com- ing from impurity, abundant and sat- ing in judgment and blessing is the fo- isfying provision” (438) are bound up cus of Christian hope” (Spencer 438). in Christian understandings of Rev- Many Christians perceive this book to elation. With all this said, it can be be prophetically speaking of the literal asserted that eschatology informed end of the world: when Jesus Christ by the book of Revelation is a vital physically, and as promised, returns theological crux in the Christian tra- to earth and wages war against Satan dition, and, for many, Revelation and and his forces of darkness, when there the images within are seen as both

15 Curry, “!e End of Times: Seeing the Book of Revelation !rough a Mythic Lens” promise and fact. While there is nothing in-and-of itself as Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus, who are “life-bringers for that is wrong with this understanding, the assertion that the good and bad alike—like the falling rain—on the just Revelation is a literal decree limits interpreting the text to and unjust—who gives a damn?—like the sun” and, from meaning one or few things. In that, other interpretations an exclusivist standpoint of belief in being the elect and are seen as untrue, an Enlightenment-inspired notion that the chosen, changed and "xated the myths. Instead of reju- comes head-to-head with the $uid nature of myth. venating life being given universally to all, Jesus, the Mes- It is this limiting of the $uidity of the text that, from a siah, gives Heaven and salvation to the good (15), while mythological perspective, is problematic. As is best assert- those who are sinful are damned to eternal punishment. ed by Joseph Campbell, allegory and the establishment of For example, Lawrence asserts that certain verses, such as a myth’s meaning are detrimental to both the myth and its Revelation 21:8, which reads, “But for the cowardly and psychological power: myth is damaged by the systematic unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral theologian, for, due to the nature of systematic theology, persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part mythology is then read “as direct history or science” in which will be [emphasis in original] in the lake that burns with “symbol becomes fact, metaphor dogma, and the quarrels "re and brimstone, which is the second death” (!e New of the sects arise, each mistaking its own symbolic signs American Standard Bible), are later additions to the text for the ultimate reality--the local vehicle for its timeless, in order to remove all pagan loose ends (Lawrence 186-7) ine#able tenor” (53). Campbell argues that this modernist whilst having a theological motive. !ese additions have thinking, like that which has anchored theological mean- worked to immovably "x the meaning of the text, and thus ing to the book of Revelation, reduces myths, for “they lose immovably "x who is “in” and who is “out.” their force, their magic, their charm for the tender-mind- With this said, Lawrence gives concrete examples of the ed and become mere archaeological curiosities, "t only for ways in which he claims Revelation is an inherently pagan some sort of reductive classi"cation” (52). !rough these text that has been adapted by Protestant Christian theo- snippets of Campbell’s view on myth and religion, readers logians to declare the dominance of one group over an- can gather that the way in which some in the Christian other. In Apocalypse, Lawrence points to how, even more Church have "xed the meaning of the Book of Revelation than the Jews hated the pagan gods, they hated the pagan is, from Campbell’s perspective, limiting and reductionistic. goddesses (119). Instead of eliminating the Great Mother !e question then arises: if, according to Campbell, myths Goddess from Revelation, the later Christian writers re- are $uid, multifaceted, always churning and moving, and if work her into the story as the male"cent, sensual Whore of "xed interpretation and allegory are detrimental to myths, Babylon, a harlot belonging to a city they utterly disdained: frankly rendering traditional interpretations of Revelation “For the great Woman of the pagan cosmos was driven mythologically void, how then does one mythically inter- into the wilderness at the end of the old epoch, and she pret the Book of Revelation? has never been called back” (121). Lawrence believes that While this is a vast question, D. H. Lawrence’s book Christian writers drove her, the Great Mother Goddess, Apocalypse provides an imaginative steppingstone for my- into the wilderness in order to theologically assert the su- thologists to engage with the Book of Revelation. Apoc- premacy of Jesus and prove his superiority to the pagan tra- alypse reveals Lawrence’s bitterness towards dogmatic ditions. Continuing on this trajectory, Lawrence moves to interpretations of Revelation, in particular the ones he the four horsemen and informs readers that the horse is a had encountered in his childhood attendance of a Con- creature that denotes lordship and simultaneously connects gregationalist Church, a bitterness which led him not just humanity to the raw strength of the divine (101). Because to assert that Christianity had co-opted and overwritten of this, Lawrence notes that the four horsemen are “obvi- the pagan myths and mythic nature of Revelation, but to ously pagan” and obviously astrological and zodiacal (101). trace the images in Revelation back to their pagan roots. In However, Christianity has mellowed these horsemen into Apocalypse, Lawrence reveals that, over time, Christians patrolmen, harbingers of God’s wrath. Standing along with inserted their ideologies of salvation and sin into the book the horsemen, Lawrence also sees the dragon in Revelation of Revelation, theologically correcting the “unorthodox,” (chapter 12) as blatantly pagan in origin. He notes that working the text in their favor, and deciding the mean- the dragon is the primal symbol of human consciousness, ing of the myths within. !is happened, from Lawrence’s that which “belongs to the old divine cosmos” (135), the perspective, for a political reason: this rewriting and in- “half-divine, half-demonish nature” of the potency and serting was a way of deciding who would be in Heaven, passion within a human being (123). !is dragon is a cos- and who would not. He writes of how Revelation, in its mic dragon, one, who in its good aspect, is “the great vivi- current state, is “uglily moral, condemning of other peo- "er, the great enhancer of the whole universe” (124); in its ple” (Lawrence 15). !is is because, from his perspective, it evil aspect, this dragon of the Apocalypse “is a much more has taken the occult and pagan rebirth mythologies, such ancient beast . . . he is kakodaimon” (128), or a demon. Ac-

16 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020) cording to Lawrence, this apocalyptic dragon is “the same as a whole). In the beginning of Revelation, John seems dragon which, according to the Hindus, coils quiescent at to speak as if he somehow understands a “sinless state” the base of the spine of a man, and unfolds sometimes lash- and “perfect love,” lacking in Paul’s self-re$ection ( Jung ing along the spinal way: and the yogi is only trying to set par. 698). However, due to the compensatory nature of this dragon in controlled motion” (125). By asserting the the shadow and the unconscious (the parts of one’s psyche dragon as an externalized devil, Christian writers sought that they are unaware of consciously), John cannot stay in to erase any semblance of divinity within humanity and this in$ated position forever. !us, his revelation express- divorce humankind from the cosmos, a marriage that they es a counter-position which contrasts this infantile state, wished only to grant to the mediator of Jesus. pushing John to see reality and his own person as bearing While perhaps many would take issue with Lawrence’s darker aspects, and moving him toward a place where he aggressive reclamation of paganism within the Book of Revelation, what is important to see is that Lawrence frees the Revelation myth from its concrete tower, challenging the reading of the book as simply Christian science or history. When one considers the person of Christ, a deep lover of people of all backgrounds, who used spiritually-charged stories (parables) to convey the unboundedness of God and God’s kingdom, it appears unfair to literally use Revelation as a fence by which to designate who belongs and who does not. Considering the fantastical im- agery of the text and its metaphorical nature, even with the Christian “corrections” to the text that Lawrence notes, it hardly seems appropriate to limit such a mythic text to a singular inter- pretation. Indeed, was Godself not exhibited in several ways? God, incarnate divine, and Holy Spirit? !us, whether or not his interpretation is “correct,” Lawrence’s reimagining of the book is a gateway that opens Revelation to have many possible interpretations and engage with many di#erent people. In the words of Campbell, Lawrence begins weaving the force and magic back into a vivid and numinous text, a text that has been chained by the systematic theologian. !ough Lawrence’s clear anger towards the Protestant Church and the ancient Christian writers leaks through his words, he, nonetheless, a%rms the Book of Revelation as important, as a myth that needs to be examined, and a mythic text which would not be helpful to merely throw Illustration: The Number of the Beast by William Blake / Public domain. away. Indeed, in “Answer to Job,” C. G. Jung employs a mythic understanding of Revelation, an understanding acknowledges and accepts his repressed negative feelings that could be seen as the co-mingling of Campbell’s and (par. 708). In coming to grips with himself and the Self Lawrence’s philosophies. On one hand, Jung asserts that as a marriage of opposites, John is moving forward in the John’s Revelation can be understood as the Shadow (the individuation process (the psychic development that leads unacceptable and dark aspects of one’s psyche), up until this one to a place of psychic wholeness), stepping towards per- point unconscious, confronting the Ego (the person’s sense sonal wholeness. !is process of individuation, of the shad- of “I, Myself,” or personal consciousness) of a man who ow confronting the conscious person and the need for one naively sees himself as identi"ed with Christ (as a symbol to integrate the shadow, is a process that we all must go of the Self, which is the totality of one’s psyche, the psyche through, and, in a way, Jung exhibits how the Book of Rev-

17 Curry, “!e End of Times: Seeing the Book of Revelation !rough a Mythic Lens” elation can stand as a guiding map for anyone’s personal psychological and cosmological experience of mystic liber- individuation journey while still being a “Christian” story. ation (Lawrence 4), an artistic transport into the mysteries At the same time, John’s visions as recorded in Reve- of the Divine, a creative discussion on what it means to lation cannot be seen as merely personal: as the birth of be alive, a correspondence between Ultimate Reality and Christ mirrors the birth of Apollo, John’s visions can be the individual, a psychic journey, a depth psychological en- seen as the unconscious asserting the archetypal (psychic, counter with the Self. Perhaps a mythic lens would serve behavioral, or thought patterns which are common to all as a catalyst for one’s individuation process. Perhaps, most humans in all times). In this, the Revelation of John is seen of all, unlocking Revelation from its con"nes will enable by Jung as an encounter with a “complexio oppositorum,” Biblical readers to engage with the Bible as a whole in a a “uniting symbol, a totality of life” (par. 712) which holds newly compassionate and unexpectedly beautiful way, in a the opposites within itself. In said archetypal encounter, way that allows the myths to $ow as “all things for all peo- John experiences and reveals the inclusion of both light and ple” (1 Cor. 9.22). dark, love and wrath, man and God in the Divine. !us, the !e book of Revelation is "lled with vibrant, vivid im- Book of Revelation can be seen as John’s psychic encounter agery, and terrifying descriptions of beasts, angels, "re, and with the immensity and complexity of God’s love, and a war. While some Protestant Christian views have tended gnosis that God is a tension of opposites. In this, God is to limit the meaning of this book to literal or allegorical, to be both loved and feared, for God is both the passive, mythologists such as Joseph Campbell claim that "xing motherly ewe and the savage, wrathful ram (par. 732). As the meaning of a myth ultimately decapitates it, and this those in modern Western society tend to shy away from is a notion that poet D. H. Lawrence would have a%rmed, vengeful ideologies of God and any sort of internal dark- and C. G. Jung exegeted. Lawrence traces the symbols in ness, Jung’s assertion that the Book of Revelation reveals Revelation to their $uid, pagan roots, and, in short, states the united opposites of God’s entity can stand as an in- that the text of Revelation cannot be limited to theologi- spirational catalyst for holding the opposites within one’s cal viewpoints or "xed symbology, for theology and Chris- self, and likewise for releasing human expectations of the tianity have corrupted the pagan, cosmic, $uid beauty of Divine. the text. Rather, as Campbell reveals, Lawrence shows that All this to say: through the works of Campbell, Law- Revelation may be read as a doorway to the psyche, an in- rence, and Jung, the concretized walls of systematic theol- spiring symbol which has the potential to reconnect hu- ogy surrounding the Book of Revelation become creative- manity with the divine and the divine within. !is mythic ly imbued with new windows and doors. Campbell and $uidity and movement, which o#ers personal transforma- Lawrence would assert that literalistic interpretations so tion, is exempli"ed in C. G. Jung’s section on Revelation in prominently held by certain sects of Christianity are re- “Answer to Job”. !e numinous beauty of Revelation can ductionistic and problematic, for Lawrence saw the book be reclaimed when approached through the viewpoints of as multivalent: in the words of Campbell, Lawrence viewed Campbell, Lawrence, and Jung, who reopen the text from Revelation and the images within as $uid and “living sym- its concrete, theological prison to the free cosmos within bols” (Campbell 53). !is is played out in the archetypal and beyond. and psychological understanding of the myth as conveyed by Jung, who further serves to open the possibilities of Revelation’s interpretation to one of personal transforma- Works Cited tion and likewise transformation in understanding God. Even still, it is unfair to call the aforementioned conserva- !e Bible. !e New American Standard Bible, Zondervan, tive viewpoints unfaithful, as myths, by nature, are liminal, 1960. thus engaging with people in a variety of ways and convey- Campbell, Joseph. !e Flight of the Wild Gander: Explo- ing a variety of truths. However, if one were to marry the rations in the Mythological Dimension. Novato, New ideas of the $uidity of myth, as discussed by Campbell, and World Library, 1990. the possibility that Lawrence opens with his pagan under- Jung, C. G. “Answer to Job.” Collected Works of C. G. Jung. standing of the book of Revelation and that Jung does with Translated by R. F. C. Hull, vol. 11, Princeton, Prince- his depth-psychological analysis, contemporary readers of ton University Press, 1952, pp. 355-470. Revelation may perhaps awaken to a sense that, much like Lawrence, D. H. Apocalypse: And the Writings on Revelation. what Jung communicates, the boundaries of Heaven are Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980. less crisp than systematic theology allows, and that en- Spencer, Stephen R. “Doctrine of the Last !ings.” !e counters with the Divine are for all people, and not just Dictionary for !eological Interpretation of the Bible, ed- the select chosen. A mythic lens through which to view ited by Kevin J. VanHoozer, Baker Academic, 2005, pp. Revelation opens the text to be full of possibilities: a pagan 438-441.

18 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020) Encountering the Goddess: Transformation Hannah Elizabeth Irish, MA in the Hero’s Underworld Journey

KEYWORDS HE UNDERWORLD JOURNEY is one of the most signi"cant parts Goddess of the hero’s journey, as it is what leads to his apotheosis. Without the Underworld Journey underworld journey, the hero cannot return with the boon, whatever Gawain form it may take. According to Joseph Campbell’s “Hero Journey” cycle, wheth- Orpheus T Inanna er “helpful crone” or “fairy godmother” (71), “threshold guardian” (77), “Queen Goddess of the World” (109), or “queen of sin” (123), “woman” plays a critical role in the hero’s journey in the Underworld, as the hero meets di#erent women who either help or hinder his progress. While Campbell depicts these feminine "gures as being simply encounters, albeit signi"cant ones, on the hero’s journey, in many cases it is the Triple Goddess herself (the Great Goddess in the three manifestations of maiden, mother, and crone) who instigates the hero’s descent

into the Underworld. Considering the aspects of the Triple Goddess. !e utmost importance of the underworld Goddess appears distinctly as Maid- journey, the Goddess’s role must not en, Mother, and Crone in: Orpheus’ be undervalued or dismissed as a sim- descent to the Underworld in an at- ple encounter with the hero. As the tempt to rescue Eurydice; Dumuzi’s gatekeeper to the Underworld, allow- call to the Great Below after he fails ing the hero to both enter and depart, to properly honor his wife, the goddess and as the architect of his trials there- Inanna; and Sir Gawain’s trials on his in, without her presence and power journey to meet the Green Knight. In the hero would be incapable of attain- all three stories, it is a woman, who ing the apotheosis that is the purpose embodies an aspect of the Triple God- of his entire journey. While the "gures dess, that initiates the hero’s journey. he meets and the trials he faces pri- Each of the three aspects then appears, or to the underworld journey prepare guiding him, testing him, or protect- him for it, it is his encounter with the ing him. Again, without her, the hero Goddess in the Underworld in which would not undertake the underworld all his trials and travails culminate. journey to begin with, and thus would Only after this, if the Goddess deems not experience his transformation or him worthy, may he ascend and return apotheosis. with the prize he sought. !ese sacred In the story “Orpheus and Eury- encounters with the Divine Feminine dice,” from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, on are instrumental in the transformation the day of her wedding to the musi- of the hero, as no hero returns from cian, Orpheus, the maiden Eurydice is the Underworld unchanged. bitten by a snake and dies, descending Among the many literary examples into the Underworld before her mar- of the Goddess’ role in the hero’s un- riage can begin. Overcome by grief, derworld journey, three stories stand Orpheus determines to rescue her, so out in their clear inclusion of all three he travels to the entrance of the Un-

19 Irish, “Encountering the Goddess: Transformation in the Hero’s Underworld Journey”

Illustration: Orpheus and Eurydice as portrayed by Edward Poynter, 1862 / Public Domain. derworld. !e obvious instigating event for Orpheus’ jour- “I came here, not to see dark Tartarus, ney to the Underworld is the death of his wife. As a maid- [. . .]. I came en, and as Orpheus’ bride, Eurydice embodies the Maiden For my wife’s sake, whose growing years were taken aspect of the Triple Goddess, and thus it is the Maiden By snake’s venom. [. . .] who initiates Orpheus’ underworld journey. !is journey, [. . .] I beg you, rather than being an initiation into his marriage, is an ini- Weave over Eurydice’s life, run through too soon. tiation into death, both Eurydice’s literal death and thus (Ovid 1283) the death of their marriage, but also Orpheus’ encounter with the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, as he travels to the In response to Orpheus’ plea, “Neither the king nor Underworld in search of his beloved, and then faces the consort / Had harshness to refuse him,” (1284) on one con- Goddess in her other aspects there. dition: “he must not, till he passed Avernus, / Turn back It is not only the Maiden aspect whom Orpheus must his gaze, or the gift would be in vain.” !us, the Goddess engage on his journey. To enter the Underworld as a living grants the hero entrance to the Underworld. human, rather than as a dead shade, and to have the ability However, Orpheus’ quest meets a tragic end, “[w]hen to return to the land of the living from the Underworld, he, afraid that she might falter, eager to see her, / Looked Orpheus must gain Persephone’s favor. In her role as queen back in love, and she was gone, in a moment.” !us, as the of the Underworld, Persephone is both the Mother and Goddess initiates Orpheus’ journey, so does she determine Crone aspects of the Goddess. While Persephone never the end of it. !ough Orpheus may return to the land of gives birth herself, as queen of the Underworld, she tends the living, because he does not abide by Persephone’s rule, to the shades of the dead, thus she can be interpreted as he loses Eurydice forever. In this, Persephone is the Crone, Mother in the Underworld. Concerning Orpheus’ entrance who is associated with end of life transformations, includ- into and future exit from the Underworld, to attempt his ing the link between death and rebirth, which Orpheus rescue, he appeals to both Hades and Persephone: embodies as he descends into the Underworld and later re- turns from it. So, as always, per Campbell’s model, the hero is transformed by his time in the Underworld (in Orpheus’ case, it is for the worse), and the nature of his descent and

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return are inextricably linked to the nature and will of the Dumuzi’s death: Goddess. In the Sumerian poem “!e Descent of Inanna,” the !e galla seized Dumuzi. goddess Inanna’s husband, Dumuzi, is sentenced to the !ey surrounded him. Great Below by Inanna herself. Inanna most visibly em- !ey bound his hands. !ey bound his neck. bodies the Mother aspect of the Triple Goddess, as she is [. . .] Dumuzi was no more. (Wolkstein and Kramer the birth mother of her two sons, as well as the Queen of 84). Heaven and Earth, thus mother to all of her subjects. In In the "nal section of the poem, “!e Return,” both Du- the "rst section of the poem, “From the Great Above to the muzi’s wife and mother weep for him, but it is Geshtinan- Great Below,” Inanna herself descends to the Underworld. na whose grief is greatest. She laments, “I would "nd my Upon her arrival, however, her sister, Erishkigal, who is brother! I would comfort him! / I would share his fate!” queen of the Great Below and yet envious of Inanna’s place (88). At this, Inanna takes Geshtinanna to Dumuzi, and, in the Great Above, locks Inanna in the Underworld and in an act of motherly compassion, declares: kills her. Clearly, Erishkigal embodies the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess, as she rules the Great Below, and thus, “You will go to the underworld like Persephone, presides over end of life transformations Half the year. and the link between death and rebirth. Your sister, since she has asked, Inanna remains dead for three days, after which her Will go the other half. servant follows previously explained instructions to save On the day you are called, Inanna from being trapped forever in the Underworld. Af- !at day you will be taken. ter Inanna is resurrected, she is allowed to leave the Great On the day Geshtinanna is called, Below only if another takes her place. When she returns to !at day you will be set free.” (89) the Great Above, she "nds her servant and both her sons displaying proper mourning for her death and then joy at With this pronouncement, Dumuzi and Geshtinanna are her return, thus Inanna begs the galla, “the demons of the both clearly connected to the Triple Goddess, Dumuzi as underworld” (Wolkstein and Kramer 68), not to take any consort, and Geshtinanna, again, as the Maiden. !ey are of them as her replacement. However, when they "nd her also linked irrefutably with the Crone, as they are now both husband, Dumuzi, he has not clothed himself in mourning part of the cycle of death and rebirth, each descending into and he “makes the fatal mistake of remaining seated on his the Underworld and returning from it once a year for all throne [which he acquired only by virtue of his marriage to eternity. And in a beautiful, symbolic image, immediate- Inanna] when his wife returns from her hellish journey. He ly following the above lines, the poem concludes: “Inanna fails to grovel and groan in acknowledgement of her suf- placed Dumuzi in the hands of the eternal. / Holy Erishki- fering” (Smith Sacred Mysteries, 18). !us, Inanna chooses gal! Great is your renown! / Holy Erishkigal! I sing your prais- Dumuzi as her replacement in the Underworld. Further, he es!” !us, the Triple Goddess is presented in all three forms “is the perfect substitute, for he is also the King of Sumer” (Smith Hero Journey, 11), with her consort, and, again, the (Wolkstein 162). In this story, it is the Mother who initi- Goddess’ roles in instigating Dumuzi’s Underworld jour- ates the underworld journey, as opposed to the Maiden in ney, as well as in determining his return, are explicit. Orpheus’ journey, though both women are the wives of the Finally, the Triple Goddess appears explicitly in her respective hero. However, upon her return from the Great Crone aspect in the "gure of Morgan the Goddess, better Below, Inanna also embodies the Crone, as she is initiated known as Morgan le Fay, in the "fteenth-century English into death, but is then reborn. She also presides over the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. After accepting a life, death, and rebirth cycle of Dumuzi in ful"lling the strange New Year’s Day challenge from an even stranger terms Erishkigal set. green knight, Sir Gawain sets o# from King Arthur’s court Following this, in the second section, “!e Dream of on Halloween to hold up his end of the bargain: meet the Dumuzi,” Dumuzi has a dream that he requires his young- Green Knight at the Green Chapel on New Year’s Day er sister, Geshtinanna, to interpret. Geshtinanna is the so the apparently immortal knight can chop o# Gawain’s character who most embodies the Goddess’ Maiden aspect. head with his axe, “returning the favor” that Gawain paid With a wisdom that calls to the reader’s mind the prophet- the knight by chopping o# the knight’s head the previous ic gift of the maiden Cassandra, she tells Dumuzi that the New Year’s Day. Gawain travels for several weeks before dream bodes ill for him, that it foretells his demise. After "nally, on Christmas Eve, coming to a mansion where the this, Dumuzi escapes from the galla several times, hiding lord invites Gawain to be his Christmas guest. in various places, often with Geshtinanna’s help. Finally, At Bertilak’s court, Gawain beholds two ladies, one he is caught, and the poem concludes with the details of young and fair, “more lovely than Guinevere,” (Tolkien 59)

21 Irish, “Encountering the Goddess: Transformation in the Hero’s Underworld Journey” and the other “who was older than she, indeed ancient she depainted, / that when he cast his eyes thither his courage seemed, / and held in high honour by all men about her.” never failed” (Tolkien 48). She appears twice more shortly !e young woman is Lady Bertilak, who most closely em- before Gawain arrives at Bertilak’s castle on Christmas Eve, bodies the Goddess’ Maiden aspect (not as traditionally when “his plaint to Mary plead, / her rider’s road to guide / virgin as she is married, but as one who has not yet given and to some lodging lead” (51) for the night, and then as he birth, at least that can be ascertained from the text, and who beseeches the Lord “and Mary, who is the mildest mother plays at the courtly games of love). After "ve days of feast- most dear,” (52) to "nd a suitable place to receive the Mass ing, Gawain goes to take his leave. However, Lord Bertilak and Matins on Christmas. informs Gawain that the Green Chapel is a very short ride Mary’s "guring in the poem is signi"cant, especially from the mansion, and so Gawain agrees to stay until New juxtaposed to Morgan le Fay’s in the end, because of the Year’s Day. At this, Bertilak suggests a game: each day that poem’s situation in history. It is a strong example of Celt- he goes out hunting, he says, “whatever I win in the woods ic literature attempting to reconcile pagan traditions with at once shall be yours, / and whatever gain you may get you Christianity in an area of Britain “where Christianity still shall give in exchange” (65). Gawain agrees. mingled with the diverse elements of pagan mythologies” For three days, while Bertilak is out hunting, Lady Ber- (Smith Hero Journey, 83). !us, when considered with the tilak goes to Gawain’s chambers and wakes him, trying to roles of Lady Bertilak as Maiden and of Morgan le Fay seduce him, and each day Gawain resists. On the "rst day, as Crone, Mary completes the traditionally pagan image he agrees to let her kiss him once; when Bertilak returns, of the Triple Goddess, allowing the Goddess to ful"ll her Gawain kisses him in exchange for the stag that Bertilak prominent role in Gawain’s Underworld journey. “Morgan caught. On the second, Gawain agrees to two kisses, and he the Goddess is the puppeteer pulling the strings, the weav- gives these to Bertilak in exchange for a wild boar. On the er of the tapestry who sent the Green Knight to Arthur’s third, and "nal, day Gawain accepts three kisses, as well as court and who arranged for Gawain’s temptation. She is a green girdle that Lady Bertilak says will keep the wear- his fate, his temptress, his judge, and the mother of his er from harm. When Bertilak returns, Gawain kisses him new identity” (89). Morgan le Fay instigates the journey, three times in exchange for a fox, but keeps the girdle hid- Gawain’s devotion to Mary sustains him on it, and Lady den for himself. After this, Gawain sets out for the Green Bertilak enacts Gawain’s trials, which ultimately determine Chapel. his fate as he meets the Green Knight at the Green Chapel When he "nds it, the Green Knight is waiting for him. and then returns from his Underworld journey. !us, all Gawain readies himself for the Green Knight’s axe, but the three aspects of the Goddess are inextricable from Ga- knight misses the "rst two strikes because Gawain $inches. wain’s journey, and, as always, the Maiden and the Crone On the third strike, Gawain remains still and the knight are connected in the cycle of death and rebirth, evidenced nicks Gawain’s neck, and Gawain rejoices that he still has in the pair of Lady Bertilak and Morgan le Fay, and Ga- his life. Now the Green Knight reveals that he is Lord Ber- wain’s life-altering journey. tilak, and he knows all about his wife’s kisses and the girdle, In all three stories, the Triple Goddess’ participation is explaining that, “I sent her to test thee, and thou seem’st vital to each of the heroes on his journey. Without her, none to me truly / the fair knight most faultless that e’er foot of the heroes would embark on their Underworld journeys set on earth!” (115). Bertilak then "nally explains that the to begin with, and, even if they could, the outcome would entire test was put in place by Morgan le Fay, or Morgan likely be very di#erent. !ese particular stories also illus- the Goddess, the old woman at Bertilak’s court, in order to trate that each of the three aspects of the Triple Goddess ascertain if the rumors of the Knights of the Round Ta- has this power over the hero, as each journey is initiated ble’s valor were true. !us, the Crone orchestrates the hero’s by a di#erent aspect: Orpheus’ by the Maiden, Dumuzi’s descent into the Underworld, using the Green Knight as by the Mother, and Gawain’s by the Crone. However, it is her herald, and Lady Bertilak, the Green Knight’s wife, to always the Crone who presides over the terms of the hero’s conduct the tests of honor. return from his journey. While Persephone never indicates While Morgan le Fay is not revealed until the end, that Orpheus’ own return from Hades is at stake, she does and Lady Bertilak as the Maiden arrives about halfway present a rule for the return of Eurydice, which Orpheus through, the Goddess appears around a quarter of the way breaks, thus, while he can return, Eurydice cannot return into the poem in her Mother aspect as the Virgin Mary. with him. It is both Erishkigal and Inanna who determine !is is a subtle, yet signi"cant appearance, as she is men- that Dumuzi must serve his time in the Great Below, and tioned during Gawain’s investiture scene as he "nishes then allow him to share his time with Geshtinanna, thus arming himself for his quest. In the middle of an extensive allowing his temporary return to the Great Above. Finally, description of his shield, the poet mentions that “Heaven’s Morgan le Fey orchestrates Gawain’s entire journey, setting courteous Queen” is “on the inner side of his shield [. . .] the tests he must pass to prove his valor and thus retain his

22 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

life. Each aspect (Maiden, Mother, and Crone) is illumi- nated in relationship to the heroes, exemplifying the di- verse and transformational impact of the Divine Feminine on the “Hero Journey” cycle. In all three of these stories the hero’s boon is explicitly his own personal transformation in the form of knowledge and wisdom of the Divine Femi- nine. All three must reckon with the Goddess’s power and then choose how to proceed thereafter. While Orpheus’ story ends in sorrow because he is unable to accept Eury- dice’s death as part of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, nor does he appear to return to the land of the living with a greater appreciation for life and its cycles in general, both Dumuzi and Sir Gawain emerge from their journeys with a profound understanding and appreciation for these cy- cles, and with the appropriate reverence and respect due to the Goddess who embodies them.

Works Cited

“!e Descent of Inanna,” translated by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kram- er, Harper & Row, 1983, pp. 51-89. Campbell, Joseph. !e Hero with a !ousand Faces, Prince- ton UP, 1949. Ovid. “Orpheus and Eurydice.” Metamorphoses, translated by Rolfe Humphries, !e Bedford Anthology of World Literature: !e Ancient World, Beginnings-100 C.E., ed- ited by Paul Davis, et al., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004, pp. 1282-5. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by J.R.R. Tolk- ien, Random House, 1975, pp. 23-121. Smith, Evans Lansing. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” !e Hero Journey in Literature: Parables of Poesis, UP of America, 1997, pp. 82-93. —. Sacred Mysteries: Myths About Couples in Quest, Nevada City, CA, Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2003. Wolkstein, Diane. “Interpretations of Inanna’s Stories and Hymns.” Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Harper & Row, 1983, pp. 136-73.

23 Sacred Encounters: Transformational Moments in Myths, Rites, and Rituals

24 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

Antipodal Worlds: Being Human in the Forests of the Amazon is Not the Same as Being Human Jennifer Maile Kaku in the City of Madrid

KEYWORDS HE FRENCH ANTHROPOLOGIST Claude Lévi-Strauss liked to Amazon recount the following anecdote, taken from Oviedo’s Historia General de Animals las Indias, as an illustration of the fact that human societies everywhere Indigenous are fundamentally ethnocentric: Origins T Culture In the Greater Antilles, a few years after the discovery of Amer- ica, while the Spaniards were sending out investigative commis- sions to "nd out whether or not the natives had a soul, the natives set about drowning white prisoners in order to observe whether their corpses would decompose or not after a certain length of time. (Race, 21; my translation)

In one remarkably pithy sentence, In Lévi-Strauss’ anecdote, both sides Lévi-Strauss sums up the dramatic were therefore quite naturally carrying encounter of two alien worlds, reveal- out their investigations on the basis of ing two antipodal conceptions of what their respective mythologies or worl- it means to be human: for what each dviews. side is attempting to fathom is indeed !e question of what makes a crea- the humanity, or, more precisely, the ture human or nonhuman is one of degree of humanity of the other. For those timeless questions that all my- the natives of the “Old World,” the thologies set out to answer. And while object of inquiry is its inner subjec- the questions may be universal, the tivity: How human is this unknown answers are inevitably local. In other creature’s soul? For the natives of the words, a human being in the forests of “New World,” on the other hand, the Abya Yala1 is not the same as a human object of analysis is its corporeal ex- being in the city of Madrid—unless terior: How human is this unknown one has been conquered by or con- creature’s body? From a hermeneu- verted to the mythology of the other, tic perspective, the Europeans and in which case, that di#erence would the indigenous people of the “New e#ectively be annihilated. We are all World” were both doing what we are brought up into an answer of what all brought up to do, which is to see it means to be a human being,2 and the world through the lens of the pre- de"ned interpretive paradigms that 1. Dating from pre-colonial times, this name is used by the Kuna peoples in present-day Pan- shape the ways we perceive and experi- ama and Colombia to refer to the Americas. ence ourselves and others in relation to Abya Yala means “land of blood” or “mature our environment. !rough these mas- land.” It has been taken up, at the suggestion ter narratives—the myths into which of Bolivian Aymara leader Takir Mamani, as we are born—we come to dwell in a an indigenous name for the American conti- nents as a whole. world that is in reality a worldview. 2. I am indebted to Dr. Michael Sipiora for

25 Kaku, “Antipodal Worlds: Being Human in the Forests of the Amazon is Not the Same as Being Human in the City of Madrid” that answer is provided by the master narratives and tra- of the meeting of two alien worlds comes the revelation of ditions that we inherit. In order to answer the questions di#erence. !e ultimate aim of the present inquiry is thus raised by the investigations of the natives and the Europe- to contemplate and revel in di#erences, to marvel at their ans in the "fteenth century, we will remain on the shores mysteries and to rejoice in their persistence. of the (ethnocentrically dubbed) “New World” and turn to the narratives inherited by the indigenous peoples of the I. P'()*+,', P'(- ,' H./*0 present-day Amazon. !e "rst section, “Predator, Prey or Although the encounter described by Lévi-Strauss eventu- Human,” will explore the shape-shifting sense of being and ally led to the decimation of the natives of the Caribbean, 3 body in the Amerindian cosmos. In this context, human is a certain number of indigenous peoples on the southern one of three identities accessible to all beings in the pres- continent were able until quite recently to resist or remain ence of a non-predatory relationship. !is will lead, in the uncontacted by Western civilization. Many of these peo- second section, entitled “Humans and Animals: Myths of ples, representing a large diversity of ethnic groups, inhab- Origins,” to an examination of the Amazonian and West- it the Amazonian lowlands, which span the present-day ern narratives of the origin of the divide between humans countries of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, and animals as eloquent mirror negatives of each other. Fi- Guyana, French Guiana, Bolivia, and Colombia. nally, the third section, “Human by Nature or Human by In the Amazonian lowlands, “human” does not refer to Culture,” will consider the ways in which beings are not an objective being (a human being) or a particular species born but become human in the Amazon through a collec- (the human species), but instead to a particular identity in tive, cultural process. !e primary sources for this inquiry a relationship. As the renowned Brazilian anthropologist will be the work of the iconoclastic anthropologist Eduardo Eduardo Viveiros de Castro observes, “‘Human’ is a term Viveiros de Castro, the essays in the exhibition catalogue designating a relation, not a substance” (Cannibal Meta- 4 Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? (What Is a Body?), and the words of physics 59n19). While we in the Western world are born the Yanomami sha- into a world of things, man Davi Kopenawa. Just as humans have a history of their relations with animals, the indigenous peo- In considering Ama- so also animals have a history of their relations with humans. ples of the Amazon zonian notions of the are born into a world body and the soul, of Only humans, however, construct narratives of this history. of relations. If, in our nature and culture, of - Tim Ingold, !e Perception of the Environment environment, we are the relationship be- surrounded by a mul- tween humans and animals and the myth of their di#eren- tiplicity of concrete objects (distinguished as animate or tiation, we will see that they are the antithesis of our own inanimate), in their environment, they are surrounded in- in the most fundamental and illuminating ways. stead by a web of virtual and concrete relationships—the If human societies everywhere are ineluctably ethno- former lying dormant (inanimate) until engaged or ma- centric, each unwittingly seeing the world through the terialized (animated) by events, encounters, rituals, and so monocle of its own particular master narratives, one way of forth. As an example, “mother” in the eyes of a Westerner breaking out of our cyclopean perspective, of recognizing is a person (an animate object), while from an indigenous and at the same time freeing ourselves from the monu- point of view, “mother” is above all a relationship—a rela- mental prison of our own history and culture, might be tionship that is, as shall be seen, co-created through certain through the unexpected encounter with an unknown other. rituals and customary practices. Among a large number of In seeking not to analyze the Amazonian and the Western Amerindian societies in the Amazon, this web of relations narratives, but to simply o#er, as in the Lévi-Straussian ex- revolves around what Viveiros de Castro, echoing Lévi- ample, a nonhierarchical juxtaposition of two antipodal yet Strauss, has called a “metaphysics of predation.”6 It is based equal conceptions of what it means to be human, the intent on the ontological notion of a universal food chain: the fact of this discussion is to propose a sort of double vision, al- that all living beings require nourishment and must there- lowing us a glimpse not only into an unknown other world fore feed on, as well as serve as food for, other beings. As 5 but (perhaps with some insight) into our own as well. Out the authors of Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? observe: !e predatory urge is thus inherent in all living I use it here to refer to the indigenous peoples of this region. things, including humans, animals, plants, and spir- 4. For the exhibition held at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, France its. !rough the interpretive lens of this fundamental in 2006. All translations from the original French are my own. insight, one creature can only occupy, with regard 5 weaned on the master narratives of Western culture and thus brought Western world. up into the answer of what it means to be human in the proverbial 6. See, for example, Cannibal Metaphysics, p. 49, 57, 139.

26 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

to another creature, one of the following three po- spective of an external observer. Its visible form is deter- sitions: that of predator, that of prey or that of con- mined by the point of view of another being in a mutually gener. (149) acknowledged relationship. In other words, one might say that, in the Amazon, body is in the eye of the beholder. !ese three subject positions are necessarily de"ned in !e second signi"cant element is the distinctive status relation to another being. In what we might more euphe- of the human body. !e human form is universalized as mistically call a metaphysics of eating, there are two core the trans-species expression of a non-predatory, congener- modes of relating to one another that in turn encompass ic relationship. All creatures, including animals, plants and three possible positions. !e relationship may be one of spirits, undergo the same metamorphosis: when they are predation: if I am the predator, I want to eat the other be- among themselves, they see each other in the form of hu- ing; if I am the prey, the other being wants to eat me. On man beings. What this means, for example, is that a jaguar the other hand, our relationship may be one of non-preda- being (i.e., the being that an Amerindian sees as a jaguar) tion: if the other being and I do not eat each other but eat will always see another jaguar with a human body—but like and with each other, then we are fellow creatures. De- will never see an Amerindian with a human body. pending on the situation, any subject can "nd itself in any All beings thus have two types of bodies: a variable ex- one of the positions at di#erent times. As a result, predator, ternal form that is imposed from the outside and an invis- prey and congener are not "xed identities and are not im- ible human form that remains invariable “on the inside.” manent in any particular being or species. Instead, these !e former is like a temporary garment that is removed three identities are—like “mother”—to be understood as whenever one is “at home,” so to speak, so that when jag- relationships, as modes of interaction, that are in fact ap- uars or peccaries, eagles or mice are among themselves, plicable to all living beings, human as well as nonhuman, they shed their theroid appearance and take on their true since all living beings are required to nourish themselves. anthropomorphic form. In other words, underneath the However, it is not only the subject’s identity or sense of diversity of their exterior corporeal forms, all living beings being that is unstable, but the body itself that changes ac- have human “souls.” As Viveiros de Castro explains it: cording to the position it occupies. In the words of Breton In sum, animals are people, or see themselves as persons. et al., “the body does not have a form of its own and takes Such a notion is virtually always associated with the idea the form imposed on it as a result of the relationship it has that the manifest form of each species is a mere envelope to another subject. It is the product of a mutual exchange of (a ‘clothing’) which conceals an internal human form, usu- perspectives” (22). Whereas in the Western worldview the ally only visible to the eyes of the particular species or to body is perceived as an (animate) object with an inherent certain trans-speci"c beings such as shamans. !is internal form of its own, in the Amazonian worldview the body is form is the soul or spirit of the animal: an intentionality or perceived as the variable manifestation of a position in a subjectivity formally identical to human consciousness. . . relationship. For example, in a given relationship: (Cosmological Perspectivism 48) 1. If I am the predator, from my perspective the other be- !e human body thus has a special status in the Ama- ing will have the body of a prey. If I am an Amerindian, zonian cosmos. It is not exclusive to those beings that we I will see it as one of my favorite game animals, such as call human, but is accessible to all beings whenever they a peccary or an armadillo; if I am a harpy eagle, I will are with their own species. It is the embodiment, we might see a mouse. At the same time, I will appear to have say, of a common identity and a common point of view. the form of a predatory animal such as a jaguar (to the All creatures, under the same conditions—the absence of peccary or armadillo) or an eagle (to the mouse). predation, a shared perspective—see themselves as fellow 2. If I am the prey, from my perspective the other will “humans” in the same way. have the body of a predator. In this case, if I am an How did things come to be this way? !at is the ques- Amerindian, I may see a jaguar (for whom I am a fa- tion that lies at the heart of every mythological cosmogo- vorite game animal); if I am a mouse, I will see an ea- ny. Myth is the matrix that gives birth to the cosmos into gle. Likewise, I will look like a peccary to the jaguar, or which we are born and then learn to inhabit. It provides a mouse to the eagle. the symbolic frameworks that inform the ways in which 3. If the other being is a congener, however, we will see we perceive ourselves and others, our bodies and their bod- each other with human bodies, whether I am an Am- ies, in an e#ort to make sense of the ine#able, enigmatic erindian, a peccary, a mouse, a jaguar or an eagle. existence of it all. In the forests of the Amazon, the Myth !ere are two things that stand out in this ontological of Origins is the myth of how things came to be the way con"guration. First of all, the protean nature of the Ama- they are between predator and prey, between humans and zonian body, which, unlike the Homeric Proteus, does not animals, between human and nonhuman bodies. shape-shift at will, but is instead shape-shifted via the per-

27 Kaku, “Antipodal Worlds: Being Human in the Forests of the Amazon is Not the Same as Being Human in the City of Madrid”

II. H./*01 *0) A02/*31: M-+41 ,5 O'26201 out as Yanomami, that is, as human beings.7 !ose who were What is a myth? To this question, Lévi-Strauss replied that endowed with animal names already possessed some of the an “American Indian” would probably say: “A story from prototypical traits of their future species: for instance, the the time when there was no di#erence between humans ancestor of a certain bird “already spoke with a voice that and animals” (De près et de loin 193; my translation). In his sounded like the way it would sing in the future” (Breton et opinion, this is a very profound de"nition of myth. It seeks al. 155). Bruce Albert, an anthropologist who has lived and to explicate the inexplicably tragic situation in which hu- worked extensively with the Yanomami, explains how the manity "nds itself, namely, the fact that it shares the earth animal forms were inherited from the primigenial names: with so many other unfathomable creatures with whom it [T]he original mythic ancestors were humans with cannot communicate. !is de"nition applies not only to animal names, the Yarori pë. !ey indulged in all Amerindian cosmologies, but also to our own evolutionary kinds of deviant practices. . . until they found them- cosmology as it is represented in the Western tradition. selves being taken over by an irrepressible ‘becom- Beginning in the Amazon, Amerindian myth tells the ing-animal’ and, one after another, they ended up story of how all the creatures in the forest came to inhabit losing their human form (xi wãri). (“Native Land” the diversity of bodies that exist today. In the beginning, 151) or rather, before the beginning, in the time before time, they were all part of one collective humanity. Everyone was As for the “human” humans, Kopenawa goes on to explain human and at the same time everyone possessed all of the in Yanomami: l’esprit de la forêt that they, too, are game. It qualities of all possible bodies, both human and nonhu- is only their name that distinguishes them from the other man. In the words of Viveiros de Castro: animals:

A sizeable slice of Amazonian mythology deals with We’re game, too. Our $esh is like theirs. We just call the causes and consequences of the species-speci"c ourselves with the name human beings. . . . But to embodiment of di#erent agents, all of them con- them, we’re still the same, we’re animals, too. We’re ceived to have originally partaken of a generalized game that live in houses, while they’re game that live unstable condition in which human and non-human in the forest. . . (76; my translation) features are indiscernibly mixed. All the beings peo- pling mythology display this ontological entangle- From primeval congeneracy to heterogeneous multi- ment or cross-speci"c ambiguity. (“!e Crystal For- plicity, the Amazon myth of origins is a myth of the origin est” 16) of di#erence. !e shattering of the pre-cosmological ma- trix that led to the creation of di#erence coincided most !e original state was thus one of superb “totipotency,” as signi"cantly, as Kopenawa makes clear, with the creation Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? describes it (157), a state of in"nite of game: from one uni"ed humanity to the manifold forms possibilities, in which humanity was the common denom- of hunter and hunted, it created the ontological divide that inator. exists today between predator and prey. Predation and dif- Unfortunately, due to a mundane event or, in other ver- ference, mythologized as speciation, thus go hand in hand. sions, as a result of improper conduct, the primordial an- Conversely, the absence of predation implies the absence cestors were transformed into game animals and dispersed of di#erence/speciation and vice versa: the negation of one throughout the forest. !e Yanomami shaman Davi Ko- corresponds to the negation of the other. It is thus, under penawa describes this metamorphosis in Yanomami: l’esprit the conditions of this double negation, that each species de la forêt: is able to retrieve its original state of undi#erentiated hu- manity. !at is why, when they are amongst their own kind, Back in the early time, when the forest was still all beings see themselves as human beings. young, our ancestors, who were humans with an- !e relationship between humans and animals and how imal names, were changed into game. !e peccary they came to di#er from one another is an archetypal motif Yanomami became peccaries; deer Yanomami be- in mythologies around the world. Like the Amerindians of came deer; agouti Yanomami became agoutis; ma- the Amazon, Westerners, too, have their myth of specia- caw Yanomami became macaws. !ey took the form tion, their cultural narrative of the origin of di#erence. In of the peccaries, deer, agoutis and macaws that live in fact, Lévi-Strauss’ suggestion that mythology is concerned the forest today. !ey are our transformed ancestors with “a time when there was no di#erence between hu- that we hunt and eat. In the beginning, all animals were Yanomami. (75; my translation) 7. The ethnonym Yanomami comes from yanomae thë pë, which means “human beings.” For a discussion of linguistic terms, see Ko- In his account, Kopenawa states that all creatures started penawa and Albert.

28 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

mans and animals” and the reasons for the separation that how we (as humans) relate to that other. Western civiliza- come to divide them could apply not only to “American tion, based on its scienti"c and Biblical mythologies, sees Indians,” but to Euro-Americans as well. Like the Am- culture as di#erentiating humans from nature: culture is erindian narrative, the Western narrative, which we call exclusive to the human species and makes it superior to “evolution,” starts o# back in the mists of a prehistorical all other creatures. By contrast, in the Amazonian cosmo- time when there was no di#erence between animals and vision, culture is what unites all creatures and makes them humans; and, like the Amerindian narrative, it goes on to ontological equals in spite of their apparent di#erences. “[I] explain the separation that accounts for the situation as it f sundry other beings besides humans are ‘human,’” remarks exists today. Viveiros de Castro, “then we humans are not a special lot” However, the story we tell is the antithesis of the story (Cosmological Perspectivism 101). they tell. If, in their narrative it is the animals who were A human being in the Western way of thinking is a once humans, in ours, which we know not as myth but as member of a particular species, the human species. All science, it is the humans who were once animals. !e trans- members of that species are naturally born with a human formation takes place in reverse; rather than a metamor- body, and it is that body that is the ticket to being hu- phosis from human origins to animal bodies, our scienti"c man. In other words, the human body is the ground zero myth speaks of an evolution from animal origins to human of a person’s humanity. !ere may be other qualities (moral, bodies. Underscoring this inversion, Viveiros de Castro psychological, intellectual) that we consider “human,” but writes, in reference to Amazonian mythology, that “sepa- without that biological body, one is not considered a part ration was not brought out by a process of di#erentiating of the human “race.” Once again, the Amerindian way of the human from the animal, as in our own evolutionist my- thinking reverses that equation: one is not human because thology. !e original common condition of both humans one has a human body; rather, one has a human body be- and animals is not animality, but rather humanity. . . . ani- cause one is human. !e human body is not the source but mals are ex-humans, not humans ex-animals” (Cosmological the corollary of one’s humanity. As we have seen, all crea- Perspectivism 56). tures, when they are amongst their own kind, regain their !e two mythologies can be further juxtaposed by ob- humanity—and thus the body that goes with it. “!e hu- serving that, in the Amerindian worldview, human bodies man body is not a ‘species garment’ like the others; it is, in are what the animals once had—and to a certain extent fact, nothing more than the form the subject automatically still have—while in the Euro-American worldview, ani- takes as a member of a ‘society’” (Breton et al. 160). Rather mal bodies are what humans once had—and to a certain than the natural form of a particular species, it is the natu- extent still have. From the indigenous point of view, ani- ral consequence of a particular relationship. mals are still human “deep inside” (in spite of their bodies), In the eyes of an Amerindian, the human body is crafted while from the scienti"c (and sometimes Christian) point not by nature but by culture. It is literally created by means of view, humans are still animals “deep down” (primarily of a collective e#ort. Deliberate processes and techniques because of their bodies). In other words, in the former case, are employed to nurture—to cultivate—the humanity of the other once was what we now are (human), while in the the child and its body. When children are fed they are un- latter, we were once what the other is now (animal)! derstood to ingest a relationship along with the food. Spe- However, it is important to note that “human” in the cial massages are used to give a child’s $esh those attributes forests of the Amazon does not mean the same thing as that are considered speci"cally human.8 As a consequence, “human” in the cities of Madrid or New York. While the the ties between parents and children are not biological Amazonian and the Euro-American cosmologies both en- but acquired or co-created as the child develops—so that dow human beings with a speci"c human body and a spe- “mother” is indeed and above all a relationship. Whereas ci"c human soul, their notions of what makes a body or a Westerners invest in the production of goods, Amerindians soul speci"cally human could not be more antipodal. invest, as Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? expresses it, in “the produc- tion of persons:”

III. H./*0 7- N*+.'( ,' H./*0 7- C.3+.'( ‘Humanity’ is the attribute of a body produced in For the Amerindian, culture is the substratum that con- common by a group of individuals de"ned as parents, nects all living creatures: all beings are kindred beings kindred or congeners—here, the three terms can be in the “humanity” of their souls. For the Westerner, that taken as synonymous—as a result of their involve- substratum is a matter of biology; all living organisms are ment in this work. (161) connected through the “animal” nature of their bodies. !e universal foundation for the Westerner is nature, while for 8. For a more in-depth analysis of the processes and techniques em- the Amerindian it is culture. !ese contrasting cosmologies ployed to “produce the human body,” see “Fabriquer du corps humain” correspond to two di#erent ways of viewing the other and (Breton et al. 160-163).

29 Kaku, “Antipodal Worlds: Being Human in the Forests of the Amazon is Not the Same as Being Human in the City of Madrid”

In the Amazonian cosmos, then, one is not born human. It is not the ability to reason alone in one’s head but, on One becomes human by acquiring the traits inherited from the contrary, the ability to relate to others, to interact with the original human ancestors, and those traits are acquired one’s own kind that de"nes the subject. A person is "rst through interaction with one’s kin and community. A few and foremost a member, not an individual: the Communi- of the cultural prerequisites necessary for participating in ty exists, therefore I am. !e archetypal North American relationships and “becoming human” are: knowing how to myth of the “self-made man” would thus be unthinkable in act and communicate with others, possessing social and the South American lowlands. On the other hand, any liv- technical skills (such as the art of adorning and painting ing creature nourished by the culture of its community has the body), understanding the knowledge of things material access to human subjectivity, for culture, as we have seen, is and immaterial as revealed in the myths.9 Humanity refers synonymous with human. “Culture is the Subject’s nature; it not to a category of nature—to a common species—but to is the form in which every subject experiences its own na- a capacity for participating in relationships—to a common ture. . . .” writes Viveiros de Castro, “the common condition culture: “[I]n that pre-natural stage depicted in the myths, of humans and animals is humanity, not animality, because all existing beings shared a common humanity, ‘humanity’ humanity is the name for the general form taken by the being here synonymous with culture” (Breton et al. 155). Subject” (“Perspectivism and Multinaturalism” 50). In the !erefore, in spite of having di#erent bodies, all beings Amazonian worldview, there is no singular human species; continue to share that original culture and identity. From there is only one human culture. their own perspective, they have the same kinds of bodies, In sum, a human being in the Amazonian lowlands of thoughts, emotions, eating habits, shamans and social lives Abya Yala is not the same as a human being in the cities of as humans (in our sense of the word), including activities Madrid or New York. In the Amazon, a human is a being such as hunting, "shing, drinking beer, painting their bod- who is not born but co-created through the collective and ies, and so forth.10 deliberate e#orts of kin and community. Humanity does In the cosmovision of the indigenous peoples of the not refer to a distinctive species but instead to a common Amazon, all beings, including animals, plants and spirits, original culture shared by all living beings. !e Amerindian are thus endowed with the same subjectivity. And the Am- myth of speciation is in fact the antithesis of our Western azonian subject, like the Western subject, sees itself as hu- myth of speciation; while ours tells the story of humans man. However, these two “human” subjects are very di#er- who were once animals (through our bodies), theirs tells ent. In the West, the human subject is "rst and foremost an the story of animals who were once human (in terms of individual with a private interiority: a personal conscience, culture). As a result of this common ancestry, all beings a rational mind, Descartes’ famous “I think therefore I am.” continue to be endowed with the same human subjectivity However, in the Amazon, as in many other indigenous cul- or soul. However, Amazonian animism further complicates tures, subjectivity is not perceived as individuated and iso- matters by making this subjectivity or humanity a function lated from the collectivity. In the Amazonian experience, of a particular relationship. It is only when it is amongst its own kind that each species retrieves its humanity and subjectivity has little to do with that private space perceives its members with human bodies. A human being that is opaque to others and pre-exists any cultural or in the Amazonian lowlands is the embodiment of a sense social molding, which we associate with the mind. Its of fellowship and a shared perspective. Humanity is in the interiority is made up of all of those things that we eye of the beholder. classify as ‘culture,’ which in our eyes is a thoroughly To conclude, let us return to the dramatic encounter be- public sphere, shared by everyone. (Breton et al. 153) tween the Spaniards and the natives in the Western Indies. In Lévi-Strauss’ description, both sides were attempting to 9. See Breton et al. p. 153 for a more detailed description of the types fathom the humanity of the other (an unknown “species”) of knowledge, aptitudes and skills that characterize a human subject. 10. Although they share the same culture, each species inhabits a on the basis of their respective mythologies. We can now see how their divergent methodologies might be a re$ec- tion of the two antipodal conceptions of what it means to what it sees as beer looks like blood to the Amerindian. In Amazonian be a human being that we explored above. !e aim of the animism, everything is a matter of perspective and this way of rooting the perspective in the body is called perspectivism. While the com- European interrogation was to decide whether the natives plexities of perspectivism are beyond the scope of this essay, I would should be regarded as humans or as animals (and thus, like to point out that it is a cosmovision that, once again, stands our in the latter case, treated as animals). !e body being the own worldview on its head. Where we posit a “multi-cultural” world— common substratum, it was the soul, and, in fact, a certain one (“Mother”) Nature with a multiplicity of cultures—they posit a type of “rational soul,” that was the object of inquiry. How- “multi-natural” world—one Culture with a multiplicity of natures. For an in-depth analysis of perspectivism, see all three works by Viveiros ever, for the Amerindians, the site of di#erentiation was de Castro (who coined the term along with Tania Stolze Lima). not the soul but the body. Since, from their point of view,

30 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020) the whites naturally had souls like any other creature—the soul being the common substratum—it was the body that was the object of analysis. We might say that the enigma, for the Europeans, was whether alien yet identical bodies could have souls like theirs, whereas for the Amerindians, it was whether alien yet identical souls could have bodies like theirs. Embedded as we are in our own worldview, in our own lived reality, spun as we are by the mythologies spun by those who have come before us, how can we ever come to see that our own experience, for example, of human-be- Works Cited ingness is not a universal experience? One of the only ways of removing (if only partially) the lenses and the Albert, Bruce. “Native Land: Perspectives from Other blinkers inherent in the master narratives that shape the Places.” Translated by Jennifer Kaku. Depardon and ways we perceive ourselves, others, and the world around Virilio, pp. 145-159. us is through the meeting of two worlds, in other words, Albert, Bruce, et al. Yanomami: l’esprit de la forêt. Fondation through contrast and comparison and the apprehension of Cartier pour l’art contemporain / Actes Sud, 2003. di#erence. As the authors of Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? observe, Breton, Stéphane, et al. Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? Flammarion, “our indigenous perspective concerning ourselves is always 2006. biased. . . . Comparison is the only way of freeing our- Depardon, Raymond, and Paul Virilio. Native Land: Stop selves from it” (22). We are all ineluctably indigenous to Eject. Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain / our own cultural matrix. Looking at other con"gurations Actes Sud, 2008. of what it means to be a human being in contrast and com- Ingold, Tim. !e Perception of the Environment. Routledge, parison to our own perspectives defamiliarizes our indig- 2011. enous perceptions; by decentering us, it allows us to step Kopenawa, Davi, and Bruce Albert. The Falling Sky: Words over the threshold of our own ethnocentrism into another of a Yanomami Shaman. Translated by Nicholas Elliott cosmovision, into another human cosmos. Fortunately, the and Alison Dundy. Harvard University Press, 2013. mythologies of the so-called New World have not been Lévi-Strauss, Claude, and D. Eribon. De Près et de Loin. completely conquered, converted or annihilated by the my- Odile Jacob, 2009. Google Books, books.google.com/ thologies of the self-styled Old World. We have much to books?id=Ut4_ugH9jUEC. Accessed 1 April 2020. learn from them. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, and Jean Pouillon. Race et histoire. Denoël, 1987. Sipiora, Michael P. Mythological Studies 515: Myth and Philosophy. 8 June 2019, Paci"ca Graduate Institute, Carpinteria. Class lecture. Surrallés, Alexandre, and P.G. Hierro, editors. !e Land Within: Indigenous Territory and the Perception of the Environment. IWGIA, 2005. IWGIA, www.iwgia. org/images/publications//0117_land_ithin.pdf. Ac- cessed 1 April 2020. Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. Cannibal Metaphysics. Trans- lated by Peter Ska"sh. Univocal Publishing, 2014. ---. “Cosmological Perspectivism in Amazonia and Else- where.” HAU Journal of Ethnographic !eory, 2012. HAU Books, haubooks.org/viewbook/masterclass1/ cosmological_perspectivism.pdf. Accessed 1 April 2020. ---. “!e Crystal Forest: Notes on the Ontology of Amazoni- an Spirits.” Inner Asia, vol. 9, Jan. 2007, pp. 153–72. www. academia.edu, doi:10.1163/146481707793646575. Accessed 1 April 2020. ---. “Perspectivism and Multinaturalism in Indigenous America.” Surrallés and Hierro, pp. 36-74.

31 Kaku, “Antipodal Worlds: Being Human in the Forests of the Amazon is Not the Same as Being Human in the City of Madrid”

32 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

Mnemosyne’s Well: The Ritual of Bathing Kristinha Maria Reva in Beloved and The Odyssey

KEYWORDS ATHING IN THE ODYSSEY AND BELOVED functions as a ritual !e Odyssey of xenia, a welcoming act of hospitality that prepares the central char- Beloved acters of Odysseus and Sethe for their eventual nostos, their true home- Water coming to their households and communities (Slattery, Epic 340–42). In both Memory B Ritual Bathing Homer’s epic poem and Toni Morrison’s novel, bathing releases physical and psychic residues, reveals histories, and re-gathers body and soul. Water serves as a type of mattered memory, drawn from the mythic waters of the Greek Tita- ness Mnemosyne and, in Beloved, the Nigerian river goddess Oya. !is ritual of receiving occurs in nature, through encounter with rivers, and in the household bath, suggesting that a tempered union of the wild and domestic is necessary to the protagonists’ claiming of psyche, memory, story, and belonging.

Water, the central element of the (5.445-46). !is divine river accepts ritual act, $ows throughout !e Od- him as a worthy suppliant, a crucial yssey within feral seas, threshold-de- moment in the epic that begins to set "ning rivers, and gentle domestic ba- Odysseus’ course homeward. Here wa- sins. !ere are, of course, the chaotic ter becomes a receptive, liminal pres- wine-dark seas and Poseidon’s wrath ence, mixing the unrestrained sea and from which Odysseus yearns to escape the sweet waters replenishing civiliza- in order to "nd his way back to the tion. shores of Ithaca. !ese are the “great !is concept of river as threshold and dire” seas (3.322), the “terrible, also conjures the Lethe, the waters of disastrous” seas (5.367), water as wild forgetfulness the dead must cross in and wide and vengeful—re$ective, Hades, which washes away memories perhaps, of the psyches of Odysseus to Mnemosyne’s pool of remembrance. and his men still burdened by the vio- Ivan Illich in H2O & the Waters of For- lence of war. As he wends deeper into getfulness beautifully explains this rela- his journey, however, Odysseus comes tionship of river, well, and memory: across rivers: “deep-whirling Oceanos” that girds the edge of the known world !e streams carry the memories and several streams within Hades that that Lethe has washed from the he and his men must cross to seek the feet of the dead to this well ... counsel of Tiresias (10.511-15). !ere !is well of remembrance the is also the unnamed “sea-mingling Greeks called ‘Mnemosyne.’ In river” (5.460), the brackish water that her clear waters, the residues receives him on the island of Scheria, of lived-out lives $oat like the which he addresses as a god: “Hear specks of "ne sand at the bot- me Lord, whoever you are; I approach tom of a bubbling spring. !us a you with many / Prayers, $eeing the mortal who has been blessed by rebukes of Poseidon out of the ocean” the gods can approach this well

33 Reva, “Mnemosyne’s Well: !e Ritual of Bathing in Beloved and !e Odyssey”

and listen to the Muses sing in their several voices cleia bathes Odysseus, she sees his scar, which immediately what is, what was, and what will be. … When he recalls his identity and story. Homer then elaborates upon returns from his journey … he can tell what he has how Odysseus’ maternal grandfather gave him his name drawn from this source. (31) and how the hero lived into it during his rite of passage, when he charged and was wounded by a wild boar. Slat- Mnemosyne was one of the Titans, who appeared “when tery writes “when she traces her "ngers over the scar she the sky still rested in the arms of the earth” (Illich 31), and immediately retraces, or retrieves the life of the man she is whom Hesiod relates was the mother of the nine Muses cleansing. Touching and tracing the scar returns the story (126). It is her well of memory from which the ritual bath to her and to us of the original wounding” (Wounded 40). in !e Odyssey draws. !e Titaness of memory is, perhaps, Her action also returns this story to Odysseus, who needs another unnamed water divinity within the text, but Ho- to be received, washed, and touched by this elder mother mer must invoke her daughter, the Muse of epic poetry, to "gure in order to reclaim and reintegrate his own origin tell the story of “the man of many turns” (Od. 1.1). myth—coming back into wholeness with himself and his !e mythic resonance of the Lethe, the river that “re- story in order to recover his homeland. It is the waters of moves the residues of lived-out lives,” is present when Od- remembrance, ritually contained and o#ered compassion- ysseus bathes himself in the welcoming river of Scheria. ately to the hero within his own home, that make this pos- Having sheltered overnight between two bushes upstream, sible. “one wild olive, one tame” (5.477), and been discovered by And so the element of water in all its mythic resonance the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa and her retinue, he removes is a conduit of Odysseus’ slow tempering. Homer moves himself from the maidens and washes away the brine and the hero and the reader from the wrathful seas of Poseidon, “scurf of barren salt water”—the sharp-tang residue of his to the gentle Phaecian river reminiscent of the Lethe in its many rough years wandering the "erce, unkind seas—and ability to wash away the past, and, "nally, to Mnemosyne’s “[rubs] himself richly” with oil (5.224-227). Bainard Cow- temperate waters of remembrance drawn within the home. an writes that in traditional epic, “that moment of takeover !e river within nature and the bath within the chamber of his own conditions marks the hero’s transition to his together o#er a type of wild and tame xenia, like the two aristeia, his great deeds that form his primary de"nition as olive bushes that shelter Odysseus on Scheria, and both a hero” (222), and by the Phaeacian stream Odysseus is en- waters are necessary to soften and ripen the hero toward gaged in a quiet ritual takeover, a necessary stripping away his nostos. And in a tale in which the protagonist evolves, as of past life and the beginning of self-recovery. Slattery says, “from warrior to bard” (Wounded 25), it is de- !is subtle letting go and anointing of self, this ritual lightful to remember that the Titaness who guards the pool river bathing met by the gods (for Athena here enhanc- of memory is also the mother of the epic Muse. Integration es his appearance), is a large part of what gains Odysseus and story must both be drawn from the well. access to and audience within the palace of Alcinoos and In Beloved, as in !e Odyssey, water takes form as sea, Arete. !is cleansing releases the feral, salt-harshness of his river, and domestic bath. !e ocean is the deep Atlantic of experiences at sea, enabling Odysseus to regain his agency the Middle Passage, unnamed but present in the text as are and translate his trauma into stories for the Phaeacians, the ancestral ghosts who haunt the narrative, the millions tales that convince them to escort him back home. “[!e of kidnapped Africans who perished in slave ships. !e sea telling of stories] helps shape and order the ‘wild’ expe- is referenced in the second part of the novel, in the chap- riences of one’s past by giving them a ‘tameness,’ a shape ters beginning “I am Beloved and she is mine” (Morrison, and structure that can be apprehended by others,” writes Beloved 248, 253), which appear to express the personal Dennis Slattery (Wounded 38). But preliminary to Odys- perspective of the child whom Sethe murdered, comin- seus’ re-storying of his experience is his softening and loos- gled with the collective perspective of those lost at sea. !e ening of those encounters through immersion in the river, river is the Ohio: a place of birth and rebirth (of Sethe’s a bridge between sea and home. daughters, Denver and Beloved) and of boundary (between Parallel to this ritual river bathing is the footbath Eu- freedom and enslavement). Like the river of Scheria in !e rycleia later gives the hero while he is still disguised as a Odyssey, the Ohio is receptive, liminal and reminiscent of vagrant. !e old nurse "rst mixes cold and hot water, which the Lethe, marking a threshold between worlds and car- recalls the in-between quality of the brackish Phaeacian rying the residual memories of those who cross its waters. river. !ese are also temperate waters, o#ering Odysseus And, as she is present in the Greek epic, Mnemosyne also further tempering within the “glittering basin” (19.386) next inspirits Beloved’s bathing scenes, the re-membering and to the hearth of the home he is so close to reclaiming. !e remembering acts of xenia o#ered to Sethe by her mother- emphasis here is not on what is released, as was the case in in-law, Baby Suggs, and her lover, Paul D. the river, but upon what is revealed and retrieved. As Eury- But Morrison brings another myth to these waters,

34 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020) coupling Western classicism with the spiritual traditions gatherings and kindness. !e simple, powerful line “She of Africa. Tessa Roynon explains Morrison’s allusiveness tore” relates to Sethe—her whipped skin, the opening of “is often a simultaneous invocation of Graeco-Roman and her womb, and the tragic tearing of her baby’s neck in the either West or North African cultural forms” (382), and, shed—while also invoking Baby Suggs, who ripped cloth indeed, narrative elements within Beloved also conjure the to make both a new dress and bandage-dressings for her Yoruba goddess Oya, who presides over the Niger river. daughter-in-law, newly escaped from slavery. !is African K. Zauditu-Selassie, in African Spiritual Traditions in the myth holds the story of Beloved within its river. Novels of Toni Morrison, says Oya “represents the transition It is a river, the Ohio, that is the "rst to welcome Sethe

Illustration: “Odysseus and Polyphemus” by Arnold Böcklin, 1896. Odysseus taunts the Cyclops Polyphemus who heaves a boulder at the escaping soldiers / Public domain. between life and death” and “provides access for the egres- and her unborn child after the long journey north toward sion of departed souls across the river” (161)—a strong cor- freedom: “It looked like home to her, and the baby (not relate to the Lethe, as well as to the Ohio as both the cross- dead in the least) must have thought so too. As soon as ing point for slaves seeking freedom and the waters from Sethe got close to the river her own water broke loose to which Denver, as new life, and Beloved, as embodied dead, join it” (Beloved 98). As Odysseus is received by the Phaea- emerge. In discussing the Oya myth, Judith Gleason states cian river, experiencing a divine-wild xenia pivotal to his that “a big tree was uprooted … the head of the household homecoming, so is Sethe "rst blessed by the Ohio in a in whose shade we felt secure suddenly perished. She tore, powerful, primal moment of transition. !is encounter is and a river over$owed its banks. Whole cloth was ripped so intense, that the waters of her womb burst to meet the into shreds. Barriers were broken down” (qtd. in Zaudi- waters of this river, and her child emerges into the larger, tu-Selassie 158). !e uprooted tree suggests the stump receptive, liminal body of the Ohio that gives Sethe her where Sethe "rst "nds her revivi"ed daughter, Beloved, "rst glimpse of home. waiting for her and where the townswomen leave food for !e most signi"cant bathing event in Beloved happens the beleaguered family at the end of the novel; the rugged right after Sethe crosses the river and is received by the wound on Sethe’s back engraved by a cruel master and lik- maternal surrogate in her life, her mother-in-law, Baby ened to a “chokecherry tree” (Morrison, Beloved 93); and, of Suggs, at 124 Bluestone Road—just as Odysseus, upon re- course, Baby Suggs, the trusted head of the household on turning to his palace, is bathed by the maternal nursemaid the freedom side of the river, whose death leaves her com- Eurycleia. !e elder begins tending Sethe’s broken body munity without the tree-like shelter and grounding of her as soon as her daughter-in-law enters her home, an im-

35 Reva, “Mnemosyne’s Well: !e Ritual of Bathing in Beloved and !e Odyssey” mediate and assured act of xenia. Ritual elements infuse those healing waters, but that is enough. Mnemosyne is the scene: Baby Suggs, a recognized holy woman within present and here attends to more than a remembrance of her community, “an unchurched preacher” (102), performs the body, her imaginal waters now holding the possibility the bathing in a special chamber, the “keeping room,” by of new expression. Indeed, when Sethe looks at Paul D, she the light of a “spirit lamp” (109), phrasings that conjure a sees him again as the man to whom she could cry and tell gentle sanctuary. She heats water pan by pan and bathes her story. He, likewise, admits, “he wants to put his story Sethe in sections, removing the old clothes, dirt, blood, and next to hers” (322), just as Odysseus did with Penelope. dried milk from the body, before "nally soaking Sethe’s feet And while they both sense with gratitude how their histo- in a bucket of salt water and juniper. It is a slow, sacred ries are safe with each other, what Paul D speaks aloud is process, one that welcomes the body bit by bit and releases that they need “some kind of tomorrow”(322). !ey have the physical residues Sethe has carried up from the “bloody "nally reached the place where restoring and re-storying side of the Ohio” (37). While Baby Suggs removes what and is not just a looking backwards, but a looking ahead. isn’t “worth saving” (110), she also blankets Sethe, binds !ey have "nally found their nostos in the house and with her womb and stomach with torn cloth, and clothes her in each other. a newly stitched dress, gathering her together again. !roughout the text, Morrison grapples with what As Eurycleia uncovers Odysseus’ scar, so does Baby she refers to as “prehistoric memory,” of how to meet the Suggs uncover the wound on Sethe’s back, described in memories of the individual and an entire people that have the novel as “roses of blood blossoming” and “$owering” not yet been storied and claimed (“Unspeakable” 162). (109–10). What is revealed is both horri"c and suggestive Characters consume and are consumed by memories, they of new life, perhaps the wounded body “as a site of history chew and are chewed, each metabolizing an overwhelm- and identity” that is “at once a burden and a means of re- ing unresolved past and being metabolized by it. And the demption” (!omson 106). And Baby Suggs, who under- result is their stories, which spiral through the novel like stands “everything depends on knowing how much … and ripples through water, at times a trickle, at times a $ood, good is knowing when to stop” (Morrison, Beloved 102), at times an undi#erentiated sea. But it is only when the does not ask for the story, but rather drapes the laceration group of townswomen arrive to ward o# the angry spirit of so it can heal. !ese are transitional waters, both fresh and Beloved—a ravenous memory made $esh—that the pain- salt, like the river that rescued Odysseus and removed the ful collective memories are faced ritually and powerfully residues of his travails, and the Lethe’s waters of forgetting. within the vessel of community, just as Sethe’s individual Baby Suggs calls these waters into the home, gives them wounding was faced by Baby Suggs within the vessel of domestic shape with each pan she heats on the stove. She the domestic bath. Now those memories that feed o# the begins to gather them into the well, but Mnemosyne is future can be laid “down by the riverside” (Beloved 101), as present here only for the body. !ere is much to be released, Baby Suggs advised. Beloved, exorcised, returns to the river, and the body must be remembered before the story. but now in mythic form, as a mysterious “naked woman Baby Suggs, who gathers her community and implores with "sh for hair” (Beloved 315), a description that conjures them to “love [their] $esh” (Morrison, Beloved 103), knows both the idea of a Greek gorgon and an African river ori- the importance of reclaiming the body. She understands sha. She is "nally released—to the Ohio, to the Lethe, to that “to retrieve one’s own embodiment, bit by bit and piece the Niger—and is consciously forgotten. by piece, and to stitch the parts back together is at the same In !e Odyssey and Beloved, scenes of bathing reveal how time to reclaim the history of that embodiment, for incar- necessary xenia is to nostos, how being received by both na- nation always insists on a context—a history and a future” ture (rivers) and one’s people creates the conditions for true (Wounded 211). Her bath is a form of “"xing ceremony” homecoming. In both we see how bathing, as a formalized (Beloved 101), an attempt to bring Sethe back into whole- act of xenia, relates to memory, o#ering a mythic holding ness by "rst tending and lovingly re-membering the body in which water, infused with archetypal resonance, both that had been so hated and abused. !e wound, revealed, washes away what must be forgotten and returns what points toward a violent history but also, in its blossoming, must be remembered. And both texts show how this ritual toward the prospect of a future. way of dealing with memory creates a container that allows !at future is realized in Beloved when Paul D returns the integration of self necessary to tell new stories, an act to care for Sethe, who, after Beloved’s departure, has sur- central to the claiming of home—which is, perhaps, one rendered herself to Baby Suggs’ deathbed. He moves to of the primary endeavors of epic tradition. Slattery writes: warm some water, and Sethe wonders “if he bathes her in “Homelessness and rootlessness, the epic imagination im- sections, will the parts hold?” (321), recalling the bathing plies, is directly linked to the loss of memory. … the epic and binding her mother-in-law delivered. Because Paul D serves to reestablish the home and the experience of dwell- pauses, there is no actual bath drawn, only the memory of ing for both individuals and entire civilizations” (“Narra-

36 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020) tive Play” 333). In epics that both wrestle with questions of homelessness—for Odysseus, of how to return, and, for Sethe, of how to create home from the bricolage of a wounded past—the bath as ritual opens a welcoming door: to forgetting, to remembering, and ultimately to re-vision- ing what it means to be whole, what it means to belong.

Works Cited

Cowan, Bainard. “America Between Two Myths: Moby Dick as Epic.” !e Epic Cosmos, edited by Larry Alums and Louise Cowan. !e Dallas Institute, 1992, pp. 217- 46. Hesiod. Hesiod: !e Works and Days, !eogony, !e Shield of Herakles. Translated by Richmond Lattimore. Universi- ty of Michigan Press, 1991. Homer. !e Odyssey. Translated by Albert Cook. Norton, 1993. Illich, Ivan. H20 and the Waters of Forgetfulness. Marian Bo- yars Publishers, 2012. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Vintage Books, 2004. ---. “Unspeakable !ings Unspoken: !e Afro-American Presence in American Literature.” Michigan Quarterly Review, vol. 28, no. 1, Winter 1989, pp. 1-34. Roynon, Tessa. “!e Africanness of Classicism in the Work of Toni Morrison.” African Athena: New Agendas, edited by Daniel Orrells et al., Oxford UP, 2011, pp. 381-97. Slattery, Dennis Patrick. “!e Narrative Play of Memory in Epic.” !e Epic Cosmos, edited by Larry Alums and Louise Cowan. !e Dallas Institute, 1992, pp. 331-52. ---. !e Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh. SUNY Press, 2000. !omson, Rosemarie Garland. Extraordinary Bodies: Fig- uring Physical Disability in American Culture and Litera- ture. Columbia UP, 1997. Zauditu-Selassie, K. African Spiritual Traditions in the Novels of Toni Morrison. UP of Florida, 2009.

37 Sacred Encounters: Transformational Moments in Myths, Rites, and Rituals

38 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

The Significance of the Horse

Heather A. Taylor, MA in Black Elk’s Vision

KEYWORDS ISIONS OF FORTY8NINE HORSES with manes like lightning, Oglala Lakota thunder emitting from their nostrils, and eyes shining like the morn- Black Elk ing star "lls the mind of a nine-year-old Oglala Lakota named Black Horses Elk, as he lay unconscious from an unknown sickness. Ancestors called the Dreams & Visions V Grandfathers tell the young boy strange stories in this vision, showing Black Elk ways to bring healing to his people. Fearful of all he saw and heard, Black Elk stayed silent about these powerful images for years. !e enormity of the fear became so strong, however, that Black Elk consulted a medicine man when he was seventeen. !e vision had to be enacted and embodied, according to the medicine man, to allow the power behind the images to come forward and the medicine in the stories to release. !is ceremony would reveal Black

Elk’s own powers and lead to a life of inations. Author Julian Rice writes healing members in his community, that “the appropriate symbolic ex- as well as reaching across the cultural pression could transform a horse from divide of the late nineteenth century. an ordinary animal to a sentient and !e colorful and plentiful horses play sympathetic wawokiya (helper)” (15). a central role in Black Elk’s vision, and !e horses that appear in Black Elk’s subsequent ceremony. Acting as mes- vision embody the ancestors and serve sengers, transformers, and healers, the as messengers for the future while horses provide the possibility of new holding traditions of the past. !ey of- pathways for humans to navigate be- fer ways to prepare for the clashing of tween worlds of varying terrains, cul- cultures when the Oglala Lakota’s way tures, and beliefs. of life is challenged. !e horses also Horses carry people and the culture bring hope and transformative meth- physically and symbolically. !ey pull ods of healing after the community plows that cultivate the land, march su#ers devastating losses from men into battle, with soldiers on their back, who, motivated by greed, try to domi- elevate heroes on statues and in pa- nate the natural world. rades, and transport fallen leaders in When Black Elk was just two years $ag-draped caskets to their "nal rest- old, in 1864, the United States Gov- ing place. Mythically, horses travel ernment created the Bozeman Trail to between worlds and play a key role in connect the Oregon Trail to Montana rituals related to agriculture, creativity, for easier access to the west to allow and transformation. Whether it is the for the prospecting of gold. !is cut winged horse Pegasus inspiring the straight through Oglala land (the muses with creativity or the sun god Oglala Tribe is part of a bigger nation Helios leading four "ery steeds across called Lakota). Soldiers took the land the sky, horses are part of our world through force, annihilating much of physically, spiritually, and in our imag- the Oglala Lakota’s way of life, culture,

39 Taylor, “!e Signi"cance of the Horse in Black Elk’s Vision” and traditions. Author Paul Olson writes, “!e nineteenth spiritual (or psychological) experiences with the powers of century was a period of great movement for the Lakota the directions, a multitude of sacred horses, and the pow- people as well as the Euro Americans. Both were threat- er to hear the sacred” (90-91). !roughout the vision, the ened by the loss of cultural bonds and by intense individ- horses embody this sacredness, helping Black Elk access ualism. It was a period when an old culture appeared to the medicine within the stories. be dying and a new one was, in Matthew Arnold’s phrase, !e vision begins when the ailing nine-year-old sees ’powerless to be born’” (4-5). !e succeeding years would two men from the clouds descending through the hole in be "lled with violent battles resulting in the death of men, his tepee ceiling carrying a spear and lightning bolt. !ey women, and children, as well as the near extinction of the tell Black Elk to hurry and follow them, emphasizing, bu#alo roaming the land. !is devastation would lead to “Your Grandfathers are calling you!’ (Being 19). Black Elk a crisis of faith, livelihood, and independence among the remembers leaving his body, following the men through Oglala Lakota people. By the time of Black Elk’s vision, the air, and arriving at a new world in the clouds. !e two the severity of the coming con$ict was not fully known but men then say, “Behold him, the being with four legs!” (19). the rising anxiety could be felt within the community. Black Elk looks and sees a bay horse1 “standing there in According to author Joe Jackson, horses began appear- the middle of the clouds” (DeMallie 114). !e bay horse ing in the Lakota Nation in the early 1800s. A class divi- begins talking, saying, “Behold me; my life history you shall sion developed for the "rst time with those having more see. Furthermore, behold them, those where the sun goes horses receiving more respect. Jackson writes, “A name that down, their lives’ history you shall see” (114). !e bay horse included ‘horse’—Crazy Horse, American Horse, Man acts as guide to Black Elk, giving him a solid center to Afraid of His Horses—signi"ed strength of character” receive the messages while grounding the young boy as he (30). For these men, and other revered warriors, “!e horse enters di#erent realms. Much of the vision is seen through symbolized a fundamental spiritual force that these former the bay horse’s eyes, as he directs Black Elk’s gaze through- foot soldiers found hypnotic: charging horses sounded like out the experience. He brings an instinctual knowledge thunder, and many Lakota visions included the experience into form and taps into ancestral knowledge through ver- of riding with supernatural warriors in the clouds” (30-31). bal and nonverbal communication and the embodiment By the time of Black Elk’s birth, horses were a fundamen- of rituals. !e bay horse enters into a relational and inter- tal part of the tribe’s way of life. Young boys played games active "eld with Black Elk, allowing for the integration of on horseback while families traveled across the Plains to the messages to be received through the body, mind, and attend ceremonies and hunt bu#alo. New myths arose imagination. connecting the Lakota people to the horse in conjunction Like the needle of a compass, the bay horse turns Black with the land and their beliefs. Rice writes, “!e speed of Elk’s focus to each of the four corners of the world. For- a horse is inseparable from the $ow of energy and emotion ty-eight horses stand before Black Elk to witness his initia- in a skilled rider. Together akicita (soldier) and sunkawakan tion. Each one is a messenger with speci"c wisdom to relay. (horse) became a wakinyan (thunder being)” (8). Herds !e horses, symbolizing a time of transformation, form a of horses running across the land mimicked the sound of mandala. Jungian analyst Edward Edinger writes, “Qua- thunder. !us, horses earned the name !under Beings. ternity, mandala images emerge in times of psychic turmoil !e sound of thunder is an initiation theme that ap- and convey a sense of stability and rest. !e image of the pears frequently in Black Elk’s visions. When he was "ve fourfold nature of the psyche provides stabilizing orienta- years old, Black Elk remembers sitting on a horse aiming tion” (182). !us, the horse and the circle provide ground- his bow at a bird. Suddenly the bird spoke, saying, “Listen! ing and perspective for the young Black Elk as he receives A voice is calling you!” (Being 16). !e young boy looked his vision in the clouds. Psychologist C. G. Jung writes, up and saw two men in the clouds singing sacred songs and “It is worth noting that the animal is the symbolic carrier creating the sound of thunder through their drumming. of the self ” (CW 14 par 283). !ere is a Native American Black Elk continued to hear voices over the next few years proverb that illustrates Jung’s sentiment: the legs of a horse but never dared to tell anyone. When he turned nine, the represent four directions, his head points toward the sky, voices said, “It is time; now they are calling you” (18). A and his tail points toward grandmother earth. Upon the short time later, Black Elk remembers dismounting from horse’s back, we are centered. his horse and feeling his legs collapse. No longer able to !e forty-eight horses in the vision are divided into stand or walk, Black Elk had to ride in a pony drag to the groups of twelve, based on the color of their coats. In the next camp. His legs, arms, and face swelled and by evening, west, there are twelve black horses, each with bu#alo hoofs he was unconscious. !is is when Black Elk’s legendary vi- strung around their necks and twelve birds $ying above sion begins. Author Vine Deloria writes, “!e vision that 1. A bay horse refers to the color of the horse’s coat, typically reddish followed introduced him, as a young boy, to breathtaking brown.

40 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

them. !ough beautiful, Black Elk says he is scared be- objects, rituals, and stories shown in the vision are all com- cause he “could see the light[ning] and thunder around mon in the Lakota culture including the sacred peace pipe, them” (DeMallie 114). !ese horses are referred to as bow and arrows, bu#alos and other animals such as birds !under Beings. Rice writes the horse “is an akicita (mes- and horses (who are often paired together), and certain senger) of potential embodiment of the tonwa (physically herbs. manifest power) of only one direction—the !under Be- !e "rst part of this initiation ceremony involves the ings of the West” (6). When the central bay horse turns recognition of forty-eight horses standing in the four di- Black Elk’s attention to the north, he sees twelve white rections. !e lead bay horse tells Black Elk to have courage horses: “!eir manes were $owing like a blizzard wind and and then guides him to the Grandfathers, who are “having from their noses came a roaring, and all about them white a council” (Being 20). More horses arrive as a preamble to geese soared and circled” (Being 20). Next Black Elk looks the presentation of the sacred gifts. !ey are in an array to the east where “twelve sorrel horses, with necklaces of of colors, invoking the senses in an organized chaos of elks teeth, stood abreast with eyes that glimmered like the movement and sounds. Not all the horses are symbols of daybreak star and manes of morning light” (20). Lastly, peace and harmony, however, as they can also invoke the the bay horse turns Black Elk to the south where there extremes of terror and beauty. For example, when the bay were “twelve buckskins all abreast with horns upon their horse looks in the west and neighs, “suddenly the sky was heads and manes that lived and grew like trees and grasses” terrible with a storm of plunging horses, in all colors that (20). !ese horses hold sacred space in the circle, creating shook the world with thunder, neighing back” (20). How- a container, or temenos, for Black Elk. Stephenson Bond ever, when the bay horse neighs in all the other directions, writes that a “holding environment is essential in the tran- the response is more joyful. !e bay horse “whinnied to the sitional process” (109). He continues explaining that “the east, there too the sky was "lled with glowing clouds of ancient idea of the temenos, or sacred circle, suggests the manes and tails of horses in all colors singing back. !en to work required so that the breakthrough does not result in the south, he called, and it was crowded with many colored, a breakdown” (110). !e need of a helper during this time happy horses, nickering” (20). Black Elk remembers the of uncertainty is paramount. !us, the image of a horse, an bay horse saying, “‘See how your horses all come dancing!’ I animal of familiarity for Black Elk, is an excellent guide. looked and there were horses, horses everywhere—a whole Jackson writes, “Since the horse symbolized to the Sioux skyful of horses, dancing around me. ‘Make haste!’ the bay strength and hope, Black Elk was witnessing a vision of horse said; and we walked together side by side, while the power and prosperity far beyond imagining” (59). Indeed, blacks, the whites, the sorrels, and the buckskins followed, this vision would be the de"ning factor in Black Elk’s life. marching four by four” (21). !e vision continues in viv- Horses frequently appear in dreams and visions, often id detail until the horses begin running and “changed into representing a connection between the physical and spiri- bu#alo, elk, and all kinds of animals and fowls and they tual world. !e Lakota recognize this phenomenon in their all went back to the four quarters” (DeMallie 115). Joseph culture by creating symbols and ceremonies to honor and Campbell writes that everything in Black Elk’s vision, from contain the energy that can generate from such experienc- the landscape, to the animals, including the “colors and es. Rice writes, “For the Lakota the horse was the carrier virtues of the four directions, the attitude toward nature of a person’s nagi2 through constricting fear so that his four and the supernatural, the high roles of the bu#alo, and the souls might breathe in harmony. Accordingly, a horse was horses, the peace pipe, spotted eagle, etc., are of the archi- made receptive to the thunder power through symbols, the tecture of the mythic world of the North American Plains” Lakota means of opening a circle of individual being to (Flight 91). Campbell further explains that the vision was wakan3 presence” (6). Black Elk’s vision created a spiritual personal to Black Elk, but it was also “collective, indeed, crisis that would have him questioning his traditional be- not only in the sense that its imagery was archetypal, but liefs and, later, his Christian ones as he tried to navigate a also in that its prophecy was of the destiny, not merely of way to heal a divide between cultures and within himself. this boy, but of his folk. It was the foresight of an impend- !e next part of Black Elk’s vision involves six Grandfa- ing crisis, subliminally intuited, together with a statement thers who presented various sacred objects from the Lakota of the way it was to be met” (91). !e horses play a crucial tradition. !ese objects, and correlating stories, represent role as guides to navigating this new world, watching and the spiritual and emotional health of the Tribe, individually participating with the six Grandfathers as they layout dif- and collectively. !ey also provide warnings of turbulent ferent potential scenarios. times ahead. A story, song, and transformation involving !roughout all the stories and lessons spoken next, the horses occur with the presentation of nearly every gift. !e horses are cheering for Black Elk, neighing their approval 2. Nagi means the spirit that guides man. and acting as a chorus witnessing the initiation. In con- 3. Wakan means powerful or sacred. trast, a few speci"c horses play a crucial role in illustrating

41 Taylor, “!e Signi"cance of the Horse in Black Elk’s Vision” possible transformations through embodiment. Black Elk In their hunt for gold and need for possession, the sol- says, “!e two men with the spears now stood beside me, diers killed the bu#alo to the point of near extinction. !ey one on either hand, and the horses took their places in the also claimed and divided the land for themselves exuding quarters, looking inward, four by four” (Being 21). !e "rst violence and domination over anyone standing in their Grandfather, who represents the west, gives Black Elk a way. As a result, the Lakota became disoriented, trauma- bow, which has the power to destroy, and a wooden cup tized, and unable to fend for themselves. In Black Elk’s "lled with water that has the power to heal all the sickness vision, some of the Grandfathers warned that the devas- on earth. !e Grandfather then runs and morphs into a tation from any culture clash could last for generations. black horse. A horse often represents a container, or vessel. !e images in the vision do not always represent renewal Author and Jungian analyst Regina Abt writes the horse and positive transformation. Each sacred object from the “symbolizes in a wider sense what carries our instinctual Grandfathers holds the potential for both good and bad, vital forces, our unconscious life basis and body wisdom. It symbolizing the tension of opposites and the possibility of is one of the most comprehensive life instincts. !e horse change. !e fourth Grandfather demonstrates this when energy carries the ego through life and all the necessary the vision shows what happens when Black Elk travels heroic deeds” (“Fiery” 335). !us, the transformation into a down both a red and a black road. !e red road, running horse by the ancestors represents the health of the nation, north to south, is one of good, while the black, running and community. Black Elk says the horse “stopped and from east to west, is a road of fear and war. !e roads lead turned and looked at me, and the horse was very poor and either to devastation or harmony, health or sickness, peace sick; his ribs stood out” (Being 22). !e second Grandfather, or war. Symbolically, Black Elk “was caught between the representing the North, gives Black Elk a powerful herb recurrent, ritualistic, and formulaic aspects of the old cul- to cure the ailing horse. Suddenly, the sick horse “fattened ture, and the record-keeping and linear progressions of the and was happy and came prancing to his place again and new” (Olson 5). After the Grandfather presents all the pos- was the "rst Grandfather sitting there” (22). Symbolically, sibilities, he and the buckskin horses in the south turn into the herb is a connection to the part of mother earth that elk. Jung writes that when animals show up as being help- has the power to restore health and vitality to an individu- ful in stories, they often “act like humans, speak a human al. When the second Grandfather transforms into a white language, and display a sagacity and a knowledge superior goose, an even larger transformation occurs simultaneously to man’s. In these circumstances we can say with some jus- as the “horses in the west were thunders and the horses ti"cation that the archetype of the spirit is being expressed of the north were geese” (23). Now the message broadens through an animal form” (CW 9.1 par 421). Each animal from healing the individual to the greater collective. in the Grandfathers’ stories, whether it is an elk, bird, bi- Subsequently, each Grandfather presents Black Elk son, or horse in the vision, relays speci"c information being with another sacred gift while demonstrating the poten- taught visually, with attributes that help Black Elk embody tial power through embodiment, transformation, and song. the message. !ese animal forms represent the connection !ese transformations always involve an animal in some the Grandfathers have with nature. !e horse, in particular, form, stressing the importance of the animal instinctu- holds the archetypal energy of spirit. al and natural world. For example, the third Grandfather When the Sixth Grandfather was about to speak, Black pointed to a red man who “changed into a bison that got up Elk says “I stared at him, for it seemed I knew him some- and galloped toward the sorrel horses of the east, and they how; and as I stared, he slowly changed, for he was grow- too turned to bison, fat and many” (Being 23-24). !us, ing backwards into youth, and when he had become a boy, the power of rebirth and renewal for the earth, animals, I knew that he was myself with all the years that would and humans is illustrated. !e Oglala Lakota were known be mine at last” (Neihardt 25). !is powerful symbolism for working in harmony with nature. When Black Elk re- shows Black Elk beginning to fully integrate all the teach- counts the vision later in life, he said, “It is the story of all ings from the council of Grandfathers. !e older version of life that is holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds Black Elk represents the Spirit of the Earth, providing a sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air grounding path to nature. However, the Sixth Grandfather and all green things; for these are children of one mother warns of signi"cant troubles for the nation. Without fur- and their father is one Spirit” (1). When the government ther explanation, the older Black Elk leaves the tent. !e soldiers came to conquer and dominate the land, and all young Black Elk follows, and becomes an active participant the inhabitants, it created confusion for the Lakota since it in the vision, instead of a passive observer. Besides repre- was foreign to their way of being. !e white man’s external senting the Earth Grandfather, he is also a nine-year-old hunt for gold was like an alchemical process where they boy who is now riding the bay horse, not just standing or projected the inner search one must undergo for transfor- walking beside the animal. He is essentially integrating the mation into an external, materialistic search. vision into his mind, body, and spirit. Heinrich Zimmer

42 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

writes, “!e horse is a symbol of the body vehicle and the a radio and everyone heard it. It was more beautiful than ‘rider’ is the Spirit” (162). !e bay horse, with Black Elk anything could be” (DeMallie 133). !e ampli"cation of on his back, faces the horses in all the directions while a the vision reaches out to the collective, vibrating through voice recounts the gifts Black Elk has received. !e ani- music and movement made from all organic matter on, mals respond with supportive neighs before they all travel and of, the earth. !e black stallion is like an Orpheus "g- down the black road of fear and troubles in unison. Other ure with everyone singing in joy at the sound of his voice. riders join on horseback, creating much pageantry, as Black !ere is an integration of spirit among all beings. It is a cel- Elk, the horses, and riders proceed to overcome obstacles ebration of Black Elk and his people surviving the journey together, including killing drought and restoring peace in to the underworld of chaos and despair. At the moment the nation. !ere is a true sense of community and support. Black Elk experiences the possibility of the underworld, Black Elk temporarily turns into a spotted eagle but quick- there is no harmony between the people, animals, or na- ly returns to earth saying, “I was on my bay horse again, ture. !is contrasts sharply with the possibility he is shown because the horse is of the earth, and it was there my power in which “the people are transformed into animals, which would be used” (Being 33). Indeed, Black Elk becomes an symbolizes their reintegration into the cycles of nature, a active participant in healing a horse in the next part of the transformation that also represents puri"cation” (Olson vision. 8). In other words, the people and nature are in harmony. Black Elk recalls seeing a “horse all skin and bones yon- !roughout the vision, Black Elk is being given a choice in der in the west, a faded brownish black” (Being 33). A voice his life’s journey. !e black stallion chief represents a world tells Black Elk to use a particular herb to heal the horse. As brought together in rhythm with all life. he does this, he invokes the power of the tribe surrounding After the horse dance celebration, Black Elk rides the him as well as nature, including the mountains, rocks, and bay horse east, with a parade of horses following him. !ere forests. Black Elk writes, “[I] rode above the poor horse in he says he sees more than he understands, “for [he] was a circle, and as I did this I could hear the people yonder seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the calling for spirit power” (34). Like the bu#alo in a previous spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together part of the vision, this horse rolled around in the dirt, sig- like one being” (Being 36). !is is a prescient image of the nifying rebirth. When the horse stood up, clashing cultures between the Oglala Lakota and the white man, showing the absolute necessity to choose harmony he was a big, shiny, black stallion with dapples all through commonality. More vibrant imagery of healing over him and his mane about him like a cloud. He follows in the vision of the two men who, from the clouds, was the chief of all the horses; and when he snorted, return Black Elk to his sickened body on earth. One of the it was a $ash of lightning and his eyes were like the last images Black Elk remembers is: “I was painted red all sunset star. He dashed to the west and neighed, and over, and my joints were painted black, with white stripes the west was "lled with a dust of hoofs, and horses between the joints. My bay had lightning stripes all over without number, shiny black, came plunging from the him, and his mane was cloud. And when I breathed, my dust. !en he dashed toward the north and neighed, breath was lightning” (36-37). Black Elk fully embodies all and to the east and to the south, and the dust clouds he is learning in the vision, merging with the elements of answered, giving forth their plunging horses with- nature and becoming one with all the great spirits. Short- out number—whites and sorrels and buckskins, fat, ly afterwards, Black Elk saw his own body lying on the shiny, rejoining in their $eetness and their strength. ground in his teepee with his parents hovering over him. A It was beautiful, but it was also terrible. (34) Grandfather’s voice sang out with a song to heal the sacred A renewal is occurring as the spirits of nature, man, and boy and more voices sing as Black Elk walks a lone path animal combine forces for the greater good. !e horses, back to his home. He turns back to see a spotted eagle $y representing each corner of the earth, join in the celebra- above, and then he wakes up. tion, rearing up in unison amongst the chaos. Suddenly all !roughout the vision, horses play a crucial part in is quiet. !e horses form a circle around the stallion: “All supporting, transporting, carrying, transforming, and em- the universe was silent, listening; and then the black stal- bodying the potential for healing the nation, the earth, lion raised his voice and sang” (34). Filling the air with his and spiritual ills. Jungian analyst Barbara Hannah writes, rhythmic chant, the black horse sang prophecy of a horse “no animal like the horse has worked so hard nor stood by, nation arriving from all over the world, dancing, prancing, helped, and even fought at the side of man” (99). In the and neighing. As the black horse sang, horses, humans, years following Black Elk’s vision, he witnesses devastating birds, trees, waters, and grasses all began dancing “together deaths at the Battle of Big Horn, sees his people and horses to the music of the stallion’s song” (35). Black Elk later re- starve to death as they migrate across the lands, and expe- calls that “!e horse’s voice went all over the universe like riences numerous other atrocities. Horses die beside the

43 Taylor, “!e Signi"cance of the Horse in Black Elk’s Vision” humans on both sides of the con$icts that ensue, staining neighing long and loud, and the white and sorrels and the the earth with blood in battle and surrendering to starva- buckskins did the same” (142). Black Elk then notices, “all tion and exhaustion. It seems to Black Elk that many of the the other horses in the village neighed, and even those out horri"c scenes of his vision are coming true. He becomes grazing in the alley and on the hill slopes raised their heads more withdrawn as the voices and images of his Grandfa- and neighed together” (142). Black Elk recalls seeing the thers continue to visit him over the years. Eventually Black six Grandfathers from his vision suddenly appearing and Elk becomes so afraid of the visions that he develops pho- nodding their approval. Soon, lightning appears during the bias, especially of thunder. ceremony and thunder begins rumbling. Since horses are Finally, at the age of seventeen, Black Elk tells a medi- known as !under Beings in the Oglala Lakota Tribe, the cine man named Black Road about his fears and the visions thunder is seen as an a%rmation. !e dancing, singing, and that haunt him. !e medicine man responds by saying, processions continue and “all the horses neighed, rejoicing “You must do what the bay horse in your vision wanted with the spirits and the people” (145). !e ceremony pro- you to do. You must do your duty and perform this vision vides a way to embody the healing element for individuals, for your people upon earth. You must have the horse dance the community, the nation, and the earth. People report be- "rst for the people to see. !en the fear will leave you; but ing joyful and those who had been feeling ill said they were if you do not do this, something very bad will happen to feeling better. Black Elk says, “Even the horses seemed to you” (Being 135). Black Elk agrees and arranges a horse be healthier and happier after the dance” (147). By acting ceremony in Fort Keogh, Montana. !e year is 1881. out his vision in a ritual, Black Elk realizes this is his call- DeMallie writes, “For the Lakota people, prayer was ing. He later says “a man who has a vision is not able to the act of invoking relationship” and “Ritual provided the use the power of it until after he has performed the vision means for actualizing religious power and for expressing on earth for the people to see” (Complete 127). DeMallie belief ” (82). !e horse ceremony incorporates the related- echoes this, writing, “By acknowledging the vision in this ness between human and animal with the connectedness manner before his people, Black Elk, at last, put himself in to nature and the celebration of spirit manifesting through harmony with the spirit world and publicly announced his dance, song, and enactment of the prayers through custom spiritual calling” (7). After enacting the vision, Black Elk rituals. !e entire camp gathers in a circle where a sacred recognizes his true gifts, and becomes a renowned healer to tepee is painted with images of Black Elk’s vision. Joseph his people. He becomes a legend after his words and vision Campbell explains “the shaman may translate some of are immortalized in the book, Black Elk Speaks. his visions into ritual performances for his people. !at’s !e Oglala Lakota Tribe continues their belief of living bringing the inner experience into the outer life of the peo- in harmony with nature and respecting the land. Howev- ple themselves” (Power 123). Sixteen horses, equally divid- er, history is repeating itself. In 2017, the white man once ed by colors of sorrel, black, white, and buckskin, as well as again commandeered the Oglala Lakota land, this time in a bay horse for Black Elk are chosen to participate in the the name of oil. !e United States Government installed ceremony. !e horses and their riders are painted various over 1,500 miles of Dakota Access oil pipeline across sa- colors with drawings of lightning highlighting limbs, and cred ground in the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. !e white spots mimicking clouds or hail. !ey all transform pipeline cuts through four states from Illinois to North into !under Beings. Rice writes that the lightning streaks Dakota. Dozens of protests ensued, with people dressing on the horses in the north, east, and south shows that the in traditional Native American out"ts and riding horses. “connection between puri"cation, enlightenment, and the Soldiers shot at the people, and horses, with rubber bul- power of destruction provides a signi"cant continuum” (7). lets, while also pepper-spraying the protestors and arrest- Men portraying the six Grandfathers sit in the tepee as ing people. Although there is a legal injunction to stop people ride the horses in a processional to begin the cere- the pipeline, with many more court battles to come, the mony. Many of the horses appear to be prancing, dancing, damage is already substantial with leaks contaminating and singing through their whinnies and neighs until all at the water and the land being desecrated. Black Elk and his once, everyone becomes silent, and a low thunder roars. Grandfathers tried to warn the white man with messages !e horse, called sunkawakan in the Lakota tradition, from nature herself. Instead, many on the land are being is “the predominant animal of transformation in the Great killed for standing up for their beliefs. Vision and the Horse Dance” (Rice 6). As the Grand- When the vision persisted in plaguing Black Elk, he fathers begin singing a song of reverence for the horses, had to enact it in a ceremony to facilitate healing so the Black Elk says a “strange thing happened” (Being 142). He medicine could be released. Pertinent to the vision was the explains, “My bay pricked up his ears and raised his tail and presence of forty-nine horses in "ve di#erent colors, each pawed the earth, neighing long and loud to where the sun representing an essential component to healing the culture. goes down. And the four black horses raised their voices, !eir role as carriers of the ancestral knowledge serves to

44 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020) bring the community together across the cultural (and spe- cies) divide. Paying attention to the horses that appear in our dreams, landscapes, stories, and visions is just as para- mount now as it was in Black Elk’s day. If we listen, we will hear the thunder of the herd once again leading the way.

Works Cited

Abt, Regina. !e Fiery Horse: A Russian Fairytale, Psy- the G.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, 1954-1958, edited by chological Perspectives. Psychological Perspectives: A David Eldred. Chiron, 2006, pp. 99-111. Quarterly Journal of Jungian !ought, vol. 53, Issue 3, Jackson, Joe. Black Elk: !e Life of An American Visionary. 2010: In a Certain Land. Routledge Taylor and Fran- Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2016. cis Group Online. Published Online 01 Sep. 2010, pp Jung, C. G. “!e Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy- 335-371. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00332925 tales.” The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, translated by .2010.501231. Accessed 14 August 2020. R.F.C., Hull, edited by H. Read et al, Vol. 9.1, Prince- Bond, D. Stephenson. Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a ton UP, 1976, pp. 207-254. Way of Life. Shambhala, 1993. —-. “Rex And Regina.” !e Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Campbell, Joseph. !e Flight of the Wild Gander: Explora- translated by R.F.C., Hull, edited by H. Read et al, Vol. tions in the Mythological Dimension. New World Li- 14, Princeton UP, 1989, pp. 258-381. brary, 2002. Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of —-. !e Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, edited by Betty a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Pocket Books, 1959. Sue Flowers. Doubleday, 1988. —-. Black Elk Speaks. !e Complete Edition. U of Nebraska Clark, LaVerne Harrell. !ey Sang For Horses: !e Impact of Press, 2014. the Horse on Navajo and Apache Folklore. UP of Colo- Sayre, Robert F. “Vision and Experience in Black Elk rado, 2001. Speaks.” College English, Vol. 32, No. 5, February 1971, DeLoria, Vine Jr. C.G. Jung and the Sioux Traditions. pp 509-535. National Council of Teachers of English. Dreams, Visions, Nature, and the Primitive. Spring Jour- JSTOR. nal Books, 2016. Olson, Paul. “Black Elk Speaks as Epic and Ritual Attempt DeMallie, Raymond. !e Sixth Grandfather. Black Elk’s To Reverse History.” U of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1982. Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. University of Ne- Digital Commons @ University of Nebraska-Lincoln. braska Press, 1984. Rice, Julian. “Akicita of the !under: Horses in Black Elk’s Edinger, Edward F. Ego and Archetype Individuation and Vision.” Melus, Vol. 12. No. 1. Native American Litera- the Religious Function of the Psyche. Shambhala, 1992. ture. Spring, 1985, pp 5-23. Oxford UP. JSTOR. Hannah, Barbara. “!e Horse: Helper and Victim.” !e Zimmer Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Archetypal Symbolism of Animals. Lectures Given at Civilization. Edited by Joseph Campbell. Princeton UP. 1974.

45 Taylor, “!e Signi"cance of the Horse in Black Elk’s Vision”

Photo: Black Elk and Elk of the Oglala Lakota, 1887. Elliott & Fry. London, England / Public domain.

46 Mythological Studies Journal, Volume VIII (2020)

Birth of the Mother: A Dionysian Descent Randall Victoria Ulyate, MA into Labor and Madness

KEYWORDS BECAME A MOTHER at 5:52 a.m. on a rainy November morning as Dionysus the darkness faded and turned into dawn. My contractions started the night Apollo before under the full moon, with the "rst one hitting me right as I fell into Motherhood bed after a long day. I was so hungry for sleep that I tried to ignore the call. I Labor I Initiation kept the midwife and doula at bay, promising that I would be "ne, and I would be able to sleep it o#. My doula recognized the tone in my voice, the long preg- nant pauses when I could not speak through the contractions, and immediately drove to my home to assist me in the birth of my daughter. !rough the labor process, I lost all sense of time and being. I had a strong recurring urge to urinate, and that feeling kept me tethered to the physical world. It never came to fruition, but distracted me enough so that I spent hours

on the toilet promising myself that ev- I was scared and exhausted as I la- erything would feel better once I could bored through the night. I remember relieve my bladder. !e midwives ar- wishing that someone would just hit rived and "lled the birthing pool as me over the head and take the baby I writhed in pain in the bathroom, out—I felt like I could not go on. resisting the touch of others yet still !is is what the midwives refer to as needing the comfort of knowing they “transition;” when the woman is at the were there. brink of delivery and it feels impossi- My apartment turned into a calm ble to go any further. !is is the mo- and feminine space, where I was able ment I arrived at the threshold. It felt to roam the dimly-lit hallways. My like my body was splitting in half with husband was the only male in the each contraction, and I wanted to just home, and he was doing his best to curl up and allow the pain to overtake lead me through the darkness. I had me. And part of me did die, though no concept of time, and little aware- it was not my body or soul. !is was ness of things around me. I was in a the moment when the maiden inside haze, yet somehow clear. I felt relief of me was dying. I was being reborn as each contraction subsided, and was as a mother. Like any birth, it hurt. resistant each time the wave returned, Not just birthing my daughter, but the fearful of its crest. I grunted like an birth of my motherhood. !e pain cut animal, whimpered in pain, and re- and the dying maiden screamed out peated the words “no, no, no, no, no” for help, frantically begging to resist in my fear. I so desperately wanted to that change, but there was no saving change my mind and go back to my her. I crossed the threshold into the life before this painful transformative unknown and pushed on. process. However, once the initiation Labor is an initiation into moth- had started, I no longer had the choice erhood, and the process of the trans- to turning back. formation of woman as a maiden into

47 Ulyate, “Birth of the Mother: A Dionysian Descent into Labor and Madness” woman as mother is to force a confrontation with the un- the image of the mother-daughter eternal chain of be- known, inviting and embodying Dionysus. !e process of ing” (Paris 23). Another ritual was performed again in the labor and delivery, like initiation rituals of the Great Mys- spring to celebrate the reunion of mother and daughter. teries at Eleusis, forces the initiate to be present in the Hillman argues that “we still catch our soul’s most es- moment and push into the unknown; however, we live in sential nature in death experiences, in dreams of the night, an culture ruled by Apollonian instincts, “a world that is and in the images of ‘lunacy’” (Re-Visioning 68). It is here ruled by a futuristic drive” (Lopez-Pedraza 11). In birth, that labor exists, in the twilight, on the boundary between the Apollonian presents itself in the form of focusing on life and death, physical and psychological, personal and the production of a healthy child over the experience of collective. !is is also the realm of Dionysus—it is “the labor and delivery, and the creation of a mother. While of feminine experience of ‘feeling like an animal’ that comes course the delivery of a healthy child is important, it is not with giving birth and nursing a baby. !is feeling is the the only way to frame the narrative. !e modern Apollo- perfect initiation for the Dionysian experience” (Paris 41). nian medical approach to hospitalized birth is static, while While the process of labor and delivery is often presided a woman’s experience of motherhood, from conception on, over by goddesses, it is the very realm of Dionysus in many is constantly $uid and changing, throughout the 40 weeks waysIn her book !e God Who Comes: Dionysian Mysteries of pregnancy, labor, delivery, and in life after birth. Revisited, Rosemarie Taylor-Perry explains the traits of the Similar to the period of human gestation, the Eleusini- Dionysian archetype: an rituals took approximately one year to prepare for (Paris 23). !e Great Eleusinian Mystery !esmophoria was ini- Dionysian archetypes display consistency in two as- tially performed to mark the separation of Demeter and pects, which tend to appear together regardless of Persephone in the fall. In the ritual, seeds were mixed with secondary, cultural traits. !e "rst of these constants menstrual blood, a symbol of feminine power and fertility is shapeshifting, imparting a “trickster” aspect to such (Paris 21). During the ritual “the initiate…identi"es with Deities, generally utilized for evasion or as a test of the goddess…and ‘feels’ life, love, and cyclic time through the faithfulness of a worshipper . . . !e second Dio-

Illustration: Hellenistic Greek mosaic of the god Dionysus as a winged daimon riding a tiger, from the House of Dionysos at Delos, South Aegean region of Greece, 2nd century BCE / Public domain.

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nysian constant is rebirth from death, the promise of and it is from here that she must trust in Dionysus and the which is conveyed upon adherents. (It might be suc- initiation to lead her to the mother side. cessfully argued that rebirth itself is a form of shape- Dionysus was not quite born of his mortal mother, Se- shifting, meaning that there is really only one major mele, but cut from the thigh of his father, Zeus, in a varia- constant among Dionysian-syncretistic divinities). tion of an ancient cesarean section. As Campbell explains, (Taylor-Perry 5) the feminine is commonly associated with nature, while masculine energy is heavily associated with culture. Tradi- !e maiden’s body literally shapeshifts as she grows a tionally, children are born from the natural childbirth pro- child inside her womb, physically re$ecting the archetypal cess of a mother, with her feminine associations with the change into motherhood. It is tricksters who often have earth and nature. !e child is then enculturated by his fa- the power of creating life, and we as mothers create life by ther and goes from his or her default natural state to that of embodying Dionysus. a “civilized” being. Humans are literally leaving the natural Dionysus is the god of madness and chaos. Joseph space inside of their mother’s body and being brought into Campbell explains in Goddesses that true transformation a culture. Dionysus, on the other hand, is born of culture and creativity must come from chaos—the motif of carnival and brought up back in nature, as Zeus brought him to the that exists in the depths outside of everyday life. Dionysus’ nymphs to raise. In this way, he is essentially the opposite associations with transformational ritual and energy can be of all humans and gods born of female mothers, which may seen as part of his feminine side, taking after the goddess explain his connection to madness. cults. I would argue that for a woman, the process of labor To embody Dionysus is to be in the body and leave in- and delivery is one of the biggest transformations in life, tellect behind (Lopez-Pedraza 31), since “Dionysian ecsta- aside from our own births and deaths. !e chaos allows sy is reached through an intensi"cation of bodily feelings” for experiential religion, where Dionysus can nurture the (Paris 12). It is the experience of being present in the body initiate from the place he once was and assist in his rebirth while leaving the rational, intellectual Apollonian world back into the normal world as a transformed individual. behind; a dive into the unknown without thought of the “Man’s experience tells him that wherever there are signs of past or future. !is correlates strongly to the birth experi- life, death is in the o%ng. !e more alive this life becomes, ence, as one of the hallmarks of progressing "rst-stage labor the nearer death draws, until the supreme moment when according to the Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth is the something new is created—when death and life meet in the onset of a sleepy, trance-like state and a loss of modesty an embrace of mad ecstasy (Otto 137). A hazy break from (McCutcheon 144-6), and who but Dionysos “makes us real life into another world, an encounter with the sacred, tear o# our clothes” (Paris 15). It is here that social niceties where once the mind has been opened, reality shifts and disappear and the animal instinct fully takes over. the woman who was once a maiden is now a mother. !e process of labor is what Hillman would call “de- Dionysus embodies the variation of experience— the humanizing” through soul-making (Re-Visioning 180). highest of the high, lowest of the low, and the middle Birthing people participate in the out-of-body experience earthly realm. Dionysus is initially the son of Zeus, the through surrender to Dionysus that leads to connection highest god of the sky, and Persephone, the queen of the with the collective unconscious; this state is what my birth Underworld (Lopez-Pedraza 3). He is destroyed as a child coach calls being on the “birth planet,” a unique state of and Zeus saves his heart. Zeus then impregnates a human mind that lies outside the boundaries of everyday life. La- woman, Semele, with Dionysus. Eventually Semele is de- bor exists is the third, middle position between the psy- stroyed and Zeus saves Dionysus, sews him up in his thigh, chological and physiological pathologies—the “fuzzy con- and he is born of his father (Campbell 214). !is trinity glomerate of mind, psyche, and spirit” (Re-Visioning 68). of parents gives Dionysus claim to all three realms: of the !e psyche leaves the personal, familiar, physical "eld and gods, the mortals, and the dead. He embodies the entire enters into an archetypal state that has been necessary to cycle of life, death, and immortality. bring every human into this plane of existence. Dionysus is the "rst "gure seen upon entering the sa- Archetypal experiences are intensely personal and cred space across the threshold to transformation (Camp- trans-personal; they are life-changing, earth-shattering, bell 194). As a boundary crosser that represents the dichot- and universal. !e commonality of birth does not take omies of the world—male/female, nature/culture, sanity/ away from the unique miracle of the experience. My per- madness, Dionysus is the perfect "gure to greet those on sonal experience is my gateway to the archetypal. While their way into their journey of transformation. Labor and this experience is unique in my life, it is an archetypal realm delivery are also all those dichotomies at once. During la- that every mother must push through to be born. It both bor, the maiden stands “on the threshold where one step is and is not my experience that I possess, but is universal beyond leads to dismemberment and darkness” (Otto 136), and archetypal, and only “lent [to me] by [my] ancestors”

49 Ulyate, “Birth of the Mother: A Dionysian Descent into Labor and Madness”

(Re-Visioning 180). ness and the edge of death during the transition to moth- In a culture ruled by Apollo, how can we remain in erhood. !e transition then becomes sterile, controlled, and touch with Dionysus? Apollonian society is “hypertech- in the hands of the medical sta#. nologized, hyperrationalized” and needs Dionysus energy Let me be clear—there are many di#erent paths to to balance. Apollo is dry; Dionysus is moist. Apollo is ra- motherhood, and vaginal birth is not a prerequisite. Moth- tional; Dionysus is madness (Paris 17). !e modern medi- ers are made through love, cesareans, adoption, and in cal system, including hospital birth workers and sta#, relies many other ways. I am simply considering the physical on a rationalized Apollonian approach created by men who and psychological e#ects of our modern medical society have never, and will never experience labor and delivery on the mythic and archetypal experience of labor, delivery, themselves. How can the initiate be led by the uninitiated? and motherhood. In psychological language, “‘contempt While Apollo seeks to understand, rationalize, catego- for Dionysos’ can be translated as a ‘repression of instincts’” rize, and explain, Dionysus seeks to lose the rational mind (Paris 27). If we are repressing our animalistic instincts and and get caught up in the ecstasy and frenzy natural expe- turning ourselves over to the one-size-"ts all approach of rience. When women are raised in a patriarchal culture, it the masculine hospital birthing processes, we are revering can be daunting to dive into the unknown realm of Dio- Apollo alone and largely losing the embodiment of Diony- nysus, since they do not know that they are capable of not sus. !e transition to motherhood still happens, just with- only surviving the madness of Dionysian ecstasy, but will out the ritual allowing a birthing person to get in touch come away from the experience initiated with the sacred with their animal nature. What does this mean for mothers feminine power. and society that our mythic experience is changing? How does today’s modern Apollonian approach to med- Simone de Beauvoir found in her research on masks ical birth a#ect the transition to motherhood for women and gender roles that “a strong woman will put on a show who elect for a c-section or epidural? Research suggests that of helplessness and end up believing it herself ” and that the highest risk factor for cesarean delivery is the location “an adult woman is asked not to challenge the superiority of where the mother chooses to give birth, with the lowest of men’s opinions and status…the feminine mask was de- rate of cesareans occurring at midwife-assisted homebirths signed for the convenience of the male audience, not to en- (Galvin). Cesareans and epidural-assisted vaginal deliver- hance a woman’s performance” (qtd. in Paris 64). Doctors ies have a higher rate of postpartum complications than have traditionally been men up until the last few decades unmedicated vaginal deliveries (Galvin). Even so, many and birth has largely moved out of the midwife-assisted women in today’s society opt for an epidural during their feminine domestic space and into the male-dominated labor experience in order to lessen the pain of contractions hospital setting. !is shift into the male, Apollonian realm and have a sense of control over the unknown. forces women to wear the feminine mask and comply with C-section deliveries account for 30% of all births in medical requests that are for the doctor’s convenience over the United States, up from 4-6% in the 1960’s, and sur- the women’s experience. Perhaps the version of Dionysus veys point out that approximately one quarter of those these women are seeking is that of “Dionysus the liberator” women who gave birth by cesarian felt pressured into it by (Paris 34). their doctors (Childbirth Connection). What is the cause !e mother is reborn in strength as a goddess through for this high rate? Since c-sections lead to a higher risk of this out of body experience with Dionysus. Labor and de- postpartum depression and a lower occurrence of success- livery are like the Eleusinian Mysteries in that the “process ful lactation and breastfeeding (Galvin), one could reason [has] to be lived to be understood” (Paris 25). !e physical is that they would be performed only if absolutely neces- and psychic pain of labor and birth is a necessary part of sary. !e reasoning for this is multifaceted, and of course, the initiation to endure the challenges of motherhood with varies by medical provider. Common reasons for this shift a newborn, the chapped and bleeding nipples, destroyed include a medical provider’s distrust in the natural bodi- pelvic $oor, lack of sleep, and complete exhaustion at every ly processes, side e#ects of common labor interventions level— physical, mental, and emotional. (such as induction, fetal heart monitoring, immobilization !ere is always the risk of Dionysus’ violence, madness, during labor, and epidurals), and a loss of training and skills and frenzy in the process of labor. It is not often in life that required to naturally birth twins and breech babies, and one gets so close to death. !e initiation distorts and rips simply a medical provider’s schedule, personal preference, away the maiden’s reality to allow the mother to $ourish, and convenience (Childbirth Connection). !is is need for and there is trauma in this, as well. Lopez-Pedraza claims control over a natural bodily process is an Apollonian ap- that he “cannot imagine that psyche moves without the proach, and in surrendering control to the medical system trauma of leaving behind the previous stage in which it has instead of the natural instincts of Dionysus, the birthing been involved.” person may avoid the full descent into the depths of mad- In the United States, recent studies estimate that 70-

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80% of mothers experience at least mild postpartum de- her new role as mother and Dionysian initiate. !e female pression, with as many as 20% of women experiencing clin- lifespan always cycles through the archetypal roles of maid- ical postpartum depression (Postpartum). In 2017, 32% of en and crone. Taking on the role of a mother is (hopefully) live births in the U.S. were cesarean, with many of these not each woman’s individual choice, a transition they prepare medically necessary (Galvin). A 2019 British study found a for throughout their pregnancies as initiates prepare for causal relationship between emergency cesarean deliveries the Mysteries. !eir close encounter with the death and and postpartum depression, and that “the e#ects of post- madness of Dionysus informs their transition from maiden natal depression can be far reaching, with previous studies to mother. Dionysus encourages “the violence of untamed suggesting that it can have a negative e#ect, not just on the mothers” (Paris 41), and maidens who choose to embody health of the mother and her relationships with her partner Dionysus during their initiation to motherhood remain and family members, but also on the baby’s development” untamed by the sterile and rational Apollonian medical (Tonei). !ese e#ects can present in di#erent ways for dif- system. ferent people, and it can be di%cult to contextualize in our On the brink of madness, I pushed for three hours, help- modern society. less to "ght the physical needs of my body. My daughter Our culture lacks the images to contextualize traumatic was "ghting me from the inside, "ghting to make her way birth experiences, and society in the United States expects into the world on her own terms. I was simply her vessel, birthing persons to seamlessly transition into their new and she had outgrown me. As she pushed, I pushed, sur- role, not only psychologically, but physically as well. !ere rounded by the warm waters of the tub with her father be- is a large and lucrative industry built up around mothers hind me. At last, her head and face were exposed. I touched trying to get their bodies back. !ere is pressure to "t back her head, feeling the warm fuzz of hair. She had made it into pre-pregnancy clothes, and even close friends and out to just above her chin, and then all the pressure was family often engage with the harmful idea that bodies can gone. Was that it? I looked down and saw only myself in the “snap back” to their maiden state. !ese show the tendency pool. She had retreated. Another push and her head was of modern society to ignore the complete transformation out again, born twice like Dionysus. I moved to stand up, of the body and mind can cause trauma to the psyche of a and it only took two more pushes and she was fully born, woman in her new status as a mother. we were both fully born—mother and child. An extension !e oftentimes unresolved trauma of birth leads to in- of myself. I held her in my arms while she was still part of creasing rates of postpartum depression in modern times. me, connected by her umbilical cord to the placenta still Dionysus “invites us into the dark night of the psyche, attached to my womb. As I laid down in my bed with her in pushes us into the depths of the cavern, but the going is my arms, I delivered the placenta. Her father then severed often easier than the coming back…When intensities turn the cord between us and my initiation to motherhood was to horror, Dionysos can be heard in groans of agony and complete. screams of pain” (Paris 29). Oftentimes, the ritual is noth- ing like the psyche expects, and this alone can be traumatic. !is trauma needs to be fully realized, contextualized, and accepted into the psyche in order for the initiate to emerge from the transformation complete. One modern folk remedy for postpartum depression is found in a delightfully Dionysian act—cannibalism. Mod- ern folk wisdom encourages the mother’s consumption of her placenta from a science-based perspective, claiming that it will help replace nutrients and balance hormones. !is is addressing the physical needs to improve the state of the psyche. Psychologically, however, engaging in the ritual of eating the placenta symbolizes the complete ac- ceptance of the loss of the transitional stage of pregnancy, and the acceptance of the new role as a mother. What was created by the maiden has nourished the child now nour- ishes the mother. !e descent into madness during the transition from maiden to mother is paralleled in the rituals of Dionysus. !e process of labor and delivery brings the initiate to the brink of death and madness, and she is then reborn into

51 Ulyate, “Birth of the Mother: A Dionysian Descent into Labor and Madness”

Works Cited

“Postpartum Depression Statistics.” PostpartumDepres- sion.org. Campbell, Joseph. Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Di- vine. Novato, California, New World Library, 2013. Childbirth Connection. “Why is the U.S. Cesarean Sec- tion Rate So High?” National Partnership for Women and Families. August 2016. Galvin, Gaby. “States with the Highest C-Section Rates.” U.S. News and World Report. 25 September 2019. us- news.com. Hillman, James. Re-Visioning Psychology. New York, Harp- erPerennial, 1992. Lopez-Pedraza, Rafael. Dionysus in Exile: On the Repres- sion of the Body and Emotion. Wilmette, Illinois, Chiron Publications, 2000. McCutcheon, Susan. Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. New York, Plume, 2017. Otto, Walter F. Dionysus: Myth and Cult. Translated by Robert B. Palmer. Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1965. Paris, Ginette. Pagan Grace: Dionysos, Hermes, and Goddess Memory in Daily Life. Connecticut, Spring Publica- tions, 2018. Taylor-Perry, Rosemarie. !e God Who Comes: Dionysian Mysteries Revisited. New York, Algora Publishing, 2003. Tonei, Valentina. “Mother’s Mental Health After Child- birth: Does the Delivery Method Matter?” Journal of Health Economics, 2019; 63: 182 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhe- aleco.2018.11.006.

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Illustration: Unedited cover image. From the Compendium alchymist by Johann Michael Faust, 1706 / Public domain.

53 Sacred Encounters: Transformational Moments in Myths, Rites, and Rituals

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